The F Word
by CraftyNotepad
Summary: Growing up is never easy. Sometimes what you need isn't advice, it's perspective. An ongoing exploration about what they don't teach us in school. Chapter 11: We pick up where we left our favorite couple, in the clutches of the mall!
1. Truth

Disclaimer : "More Phil is in your future. Keep it here on the Disney Channel."

TRUTH IN ADVERTISING. THAT'S WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT!

READ YOUR OWN BLURBS, WILLYA!

(Truth in advertising? "More Phil is in your future ... on the Disney Channel?" Hmm ... I think that we've just discovered the legal loophole pressuring Disney into Season 3!)

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The F-Word – Chapter One – "Truth"

"The library is closing in ten minutes. The library is closing in ten minutes. Please take all books to the check-out desk."

"Keely, you're still surfing the net? What are you so absorbed with?"

Without taking her eyes off the flat screen monitor, the stylin' blond whispered, "I'm deciding where I'm going to be married."

Her dark-haired cohort didn't see that one coming. "Splain, please."

"Didya' know that the divorce rate in the States is over 50-percent overall within 5 years? Sweden's the same, and Belarus, and Finland -- where's Belarus? Here, Vee, look at this. The U.K. and Canada are both around 40-percent. I could go to Italy; 90-percent of the marriages there last, or, OOH! Vatican City has zero divorces!" She peeled away a lavender sticky note to write that last one down.

"Keely, Keely, Kee--",

"Shh--this is a library. The library will be closing soon. Please log off, " ordered the librarian, whose human interaction skills predated the card catalog, as she continued her attempts to round up stragglers before the next announcement.

Via softened her tone, and made it rushed, "There's nothing special about the land you stand on when making marriage vows. Did your search include the culture, dominant religious beliefs, recent economic and political upheavals? Honey, I've been to Italy. Yes, there is a belief in the sanctity of marriage, but there's also a centuries-old tradition of machismo that encourages infidelity."

"But, couldn't it just ..."

"Dearie, you're looking at the concrete, the tangible. Where in your Boolean search are the esthetics: Love, Friendship, Devotion, Loyalty, Dependability, Honor, Self-Sacrifice, -- HAPPINESS?"

"Okay, but ..."

"But nothing. My mum has too many friends that have marriages existing only on paper and, Sweetie, they're not worth the paper in the girls' room after use. Think of being trapped with the worst imaginable cell phone plan for life, and resigning yourself to learning to live with terrible communication, lousy service, no respect, and ever-rising costs."

Via went on, "Even if you could play the international odds of happy marriages, you'd have to stay in that country, adapt to it's culture, and probably marry a local that had been brought up in that same environment -- and we both know that that's not an option, don't we?"

"I-I--I; what are you implying? I'm ju--"

"Five minutes. Thank you for coming to the Pickford Public Library. The library will be closing in five minutes. Please bring your selections to the check-out desk. Thank you."

"Truth time. We all do it, Keely. We dream of our family to-be, our marriage, our wedding, meeting the one, but you, ..."

Keely wasn't looking at the monitor. She wasn't looking anywhere. Her eyes couldn't meet Via's or she just knew that Via could look straight into her brain -- not that her galpal was having any trouble doing that right now.

" ... you quit playing Mystery Date about two years ago, didn't you? The fashion sense is a carry-over from your "Miss Popular" phase; look at you even now in just denim blue jeans and a sporty T-shirt. You don't have to compete with the rest of us to be noticed or be competed for. You're sixteen and you already have a pretty clear picture of what your children will look like. You've won the brass ring and are planning on doing whatever you can to keep it shiny. No wonder I hate you."

Keely checked her reflection in the flat screen. Had she become crystal? Via had looked right through her and not missed a thing. Slipping on Phil's blue jacket that she had yet to return (What had it been now, two or three months?), she made a pointless attempt to hide herself from Via's perceptual powers. Unlike Phil, the jacket made no effort to protect her. A wounded-puppy-face was all she could muster in her defense. Insufficient. The lights went out, then back on, again and again -- the librarian's two-minute warning.

"What am I doing that's so wrong?"

Via helped her friend up and slid a book of poetry to the table's edge to tuck it into her free hand. While they made their way to the exit, she confided, "One, you're talking to me about this and not him. This is something better shared between you both; shared dreams can become shared plans for the future. Same goes for fears and solutions. Two, you're trying to make decisions that you have no control over. You're sixteen, Girl, and you're trying to decide where you'll live when your daughter is in grade school. Live more in the 'now.' These teenage years will be up and gone before you realize and you can't travel back in time to relive them. Three, ..."

"Card please."

"Pardon? Oh, yes. Sorry, here you are."

"Thank you. It's due back in three weeks. Good night."

"A promise. Good evening."

"THREE?" prompted an intensely interested Keely. The librarian raised her eyebrows; hadn't she made it clear?

"Three. Show him how you feel and show him how to feel. Phil's a pretty intellectual guy, the kind that plans everything out, too. What he misses out on are the sensations of life."

Keely was shocked. "Are you talking about sex? Is that all your talk of love and commitment and devotion end up being about? If we wanted ..."

A wave of Vee's hand was enough to tell Keely that she had run down the wrong path; Via wasn't talking about that at all. Time to give her a chance to explain herself.

"Remember when we were young, I mean really little? Two, three, four years old? Every touch, every smell, every sound communicated information that we luxuriated in: a grassy lawn, warm towels, a cool tabletop, dust, the sound of wind in the branches, olives on your fingers -- FOOD! I think that Phil is clueless about that stuff. He's visual, probably why he's so good at mathematics, but even when he plans events for you, they're visual experiences. It's like he's watched reality on a video screen his whole entire life."

"You know Phil's family better than anyone and I know that you can talk to his parents. Although I don't know much about them, I get the feeling that they're not the hugging-kind; maybe almost 'English' in displaying how they feel."

With barely a thought, Keely dismissed this. Sure, Mr. Diffy hugged his wife and kids. Even Pim had hugged Phil during extremely emotional moments, and Barbara had embraced her son's girlfriend when she was only the friendgirl. Sorry Vee, but you're way off base on this one.

But ... but there was something ... unlike other boys, Phil hadn't put any moves on her. She was the one who controlled the pace of their relationship, physically and emotionally. Keely led and Phil followed. It was almost like Phil didn't know what to do or at least how to do it. For being from 2121, he did seem pretty lost in social situations, relationships, ... romance.

Phil had told her about life in his future, which was his past. From "popping" out of a neonatal pod, to the family's android nanny, to the Homework Helmet, and she'd even experienced the Virtu-Goggles; there was little warmth from human contact in the 22nd Century. Not Phil's fault that he was from an antiseptically backward culture; he'd just need someone with patience to tutor him in real life, and sensory education could be an ongoing theme throughout their lifetime together.

"Maybe you're right, Vee. About a lot of stuff. I'll think about it." THWAACK! A sharp finger-flick reflected off Keels' forehead. Via had not been amused with her slow student. "Ow! Ow! I mean, Phil and I will think about it." Vee's hand raised again. "Tonight! Tonight and we'll go on a picnic share our dreams and dreads and listen to the crickets and you're not going to flick me again, are you?

"Probably not. Thought this was going to become a career or at least cause the necessity for a manicure, but probably not. I think that you two just might make it without me inflicting bruises." Twin smiles erupted, laughter, and they were just sixteen again.

Twenty minutes later, Keely walked toward the steps of Number 182 ...


	2. Quantifying Truth

**Things that I've learned from Phil of the Future:**

1. They do background checks if you want to rent a bulldozer, but

if you pay with flawless diamonds you can drive it off the lot,

--No Questions Asked--

2. "Not in Face!" is the second phrase mastered by Serbian exchange students.

3. Cupcakes can make the world a happier place.

(Debbie is making me say that. help. please help.)

4. Sometimes it's better NOT to recallibrate the Temporal Pump Valve.

5. Never count on a ride home from a guest star.

6. We can change the future if we study hard enough.

7. Fashion Zombies will eat your date's brain.

8. Be nice to cavemen, one might be your boss someday.

9. Best friends don't care how many toes you have.

10. Annelids. Somebody ask me.

11. Never get too close to a Time Machine when it's gonna go into flux.

12. Girls like ice cream, unless you're covered in it.

13. There must be something in the chili that causes people to see a U.F.O.

14. The luckiest people are those that fall in love with their best friend.

15. Facial hair can be frightening.

16. Sound effects beat laugh tracks any episode.

17. If your buddies kid you about your hanging out with your best friend more than their parents do, smile and take it as a compliment.

18. Your little sister wakes up evil.

19. Rock back and forth when kissing.

20. Don't order the fish in any century.

21. It's not enough to be a quality show.

22. Don't be afraid to tell your best friend that you like-them like-them.

23. The shut-off switch on Robbie the Robot.

24. The Giggle does not have a centrifugal antenna, Doofus.

25. There's a shortcut between Kid Rock and Ricki Lake if you go through Tiger Woods.

26. Regifting.

27. Make any mistake at H.G. Wells and

expect to write a 5-thousand word essay

on a topic not of your choosing.

28. A penny saved is a penny earned, but belly-button lint is where the real money is.

29. Wallaberries are the new Crunchberries.

30. If you need an alibi,

tell 'em you were painting ceramic bunnies

and they'll never doubt your sincerity.

31. You don't need to cheer at billiards to always be your mother's love muffin.

32. Never insult Keely's kitty cat bag unless your goal is to make her mad at you.

33. Don't "Speckle" that prank. Plan an exit strategy.

34. Friends don't replicate friends without their expressed permission.

35. Next Valentine's Day, I'm giving salt 'n' pepper shakers. More powerful than roses and chocolates and the line is shorter.

36. I want a Giggle!

37. Never to have lunch with my great, great grandfather.

38. Birthday cake is not a choice foundation make-up.

39. Don't take anything from a girl: gum, mints, nuts of any kind because they all mean commitment.

40. Sometimes it's safe to pull Owen's finger.

41. The simplest things can make the best gifts, i.e., a beautiful picnic.

42. Never judge a girl by her mother's cat circus.

43. The BBQ should not double as a magazine rack.

44. Flowers and cakes make for a much better birthday present than balloons and banners.

45. Best friends always have each other's backs even if one of them calls the other an immature jerk.

46. Some rocks are better after dinner.

47. The Weather Channel must be funnier than I thought.

48. Proposition 48 made airsick bags complimentary.

49. Next time, Keely stays under the table and Phil should check if the coast is clear.

50. You don't have to win a mascot battle to come out the winner.

51. Mandy Teslow doesn't know her daughter's name, either.

52. Folk music ends up sounding lame in any century.

53. I actually played a musical spit-catcher in high school.

54. The last hurdle baring magnificent athletes from immortality is girl-germs.

55. Hide your sister's last butterscotch pudding cup in her shampoo and she'll never find it.

56. Pickford, California is the ketchup/catsup capital of the world.

57. Shower curtains don't look out of place in the kitchen.

58. Replacement pencils cost $6.00.

59. Sometimes you have to create your own timing.

60. Groundhogs get their own day, but we don't send them gifts or cards.

61. Even when you can count on your dad not being able to fix the time machine 97.674418605-percent of the time, that's just not good enough.

62. When volunteering to babysit your teacher's nephew, be prepared to deal with his moustache...I mean mother!

63. Raising a sack of flour isn't woman's work, it's parent's work.

64. Tennis Master of the Universe in this or any century is determined not by your tennis skills, but by proper hand placement.

65. Looking serious is no way to devise a plan to foil even little sister's plans to dominate the universe.

66. You can't be the hostess with the mostess if you can't make toastess.

67. If having problems with hair loss, quack at any mention of date and bust a dance move every 10 seconds.

68. "The People Rule" is the motto for Arkansas.

69. In Pickford, teachers can write anything on the board, but the date.

70. Shave off both eyebrows when in doubt.

71. I will always wonder why Pim needed the measuring cup.

72. Unification Loaf "settles."

73. Principal Tillywack did replace Neil Hackett with Keely Teslow, so I can forgive him a lot.

74. Between Olivia and Jean Claude, you can swing a screaming cat in Pickford and not hit anyone with U.S. Citizenship, but they'll have at least a "C+" average.

75. I don't want to know what "... or else" means either.

76. Never tell someone you don't like them through poetry, unless you want a smoothe or a form of beverage poured down your shirt.

77. Whenever you wish you could tell everyone in the universe your big secret (such as being from the year 2121) remember to fall asleep first. That way, when things don't work out the way you had hoped, you can always wake up from your 'nightmare' and find that things are back to the way they're supposed to be and no one ever remembers finding out your secret.

78. Always leave your caveman behind when traveling back to your century. It gives you a good excuse to turn around and head back to your significant other. It also opens up options for a third season (unless you happen to be a show on Disney Channel)

79. Even on balmy days of 86-degrees, students in Pickford wear two layers of clothing.

80. I learned that a bunch of teenagers can't do anything in the dark without adult supervision, so it's better to just go home --

81. I also learned that you can create an underground tunnel that leads to the kitchen from a room on the second floor of a house--

82. Never stare Pim straight in the eyes while she is giving her 'sweetness smile' could cause eye damage.

83. Popstar pants are hot in any century.

84. Always expect revenge from Pim. Always.

85. I don't want to meet the East Side Diffies.

86. I will, always and forever, HATE whatever future geek made the 'Thanks to the Diffies Law' And I LOVE Curtis for being so clueless and getting left behind!

87. When things have gone out of style for awhile, they end up on vice principal Hackett.

88. You get the girl by touching her heart every day, not just by grabbing her butt while getting a picture taken.

89. Pim's bark is worse than her bite.

90. To Disclaim: I don't own PotF.

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•• NEW RULE FOR REVIEWERS •• NEW RULE FOR REVIEWERS ••

All Reviewers -- that means you! -- are to also list at least one thing that they learned from Phil of the Future. See? Not hard to comply with at all!

•• NEW RULE FOR REVIEWERS •• NEW RULE FOR REVIEWERS ••

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The F-Word – Chapter Two – "Quantifying Truth"

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"Based on the laundry schedule at the Teslow household, tomorrow there is a 68-percent chance of Keely wearing slacks and a mock-turtleneck. 42-percent chance that the predominate color will be off-white with silk fuscia accents. 74-percent likelihood that she will come early to walk you to school. Mandy Teslow has not made any purchases from the Pickford Pantry for 11 days. High probability of Keely's metabolism craving fresh veggies and dairy products. Suggest stocking the locker bar with celery sticks stuffed with cream cheese and sprinkled with grated parsley, her favorite. 11-percent chance of ..."

"Enough. Remind me to pick up some fresh celery after dinner." Future Boy silenced his Wizrd and secured it again inside his shoulder sack. Keely and Via were doing research for their language arts class, leaving Phil with a rare Keely-less evening. What to do, what to do? Homework? Laser Squash? Survey sites with breathtaking scenery to take Keely skyaking to on dates? Yep, sounds like a plan.

He rounded the hedge at the end of the block and looked forward to kicking off his hot sneakers. Whoops! Pim and Danny on the porch, shouting. What gives? I thought th—Whoa, Bradley's there, too. Didn't see him at first. Sorry, Bradley. Oh, this oughta be good!

"She's mine!" they both yelled. Now the boys had gone from being in each other's faces to using Pim in a tug-o-war. Pim wasn't enjoying their attention any longer, but was still caught too off-center to express her opinion gutterly. Then she spied her dear brother coming to her rescue.

"Hi Gentlemen. Mind if I pass by? Just heading in, oh and Guys, I don't care which of you gets the bigger piece and wins; just hose down the porch before you go. Deal?" The door closed and I collapsed against it laughing until my sides couldn't stand the ache any longer. Wiping away the tears, I rose and hung the shoulder sack over an end of the banister.

"I'm glad Keels and I don't have to go through that." Hmm – so what do we do differently and why? I mean, we spend time together, we're a couple, because we love each other, we're friends because we get along and we can count on one another. Is that it? I mean, they say passion fades or dies, that it can't keep burning brightly for long. What if ...?

He spied his parents in the kitchen and thought that the quirky room had become the center of the household. Strange, because in 2121, few homes had kitchens. They were as necessary as a music room in a house filled with iPods and radios. Most families separated when they walked inside and went into their own little rooms and into their own little worlds. This house was different. A good kind of different. The kind of difference that his parents had recognized and enjoyed.

Piddling with some time machine equipment on the kitchen table, there was Lloyd again, using it as an excuse to be around his wife. The time machine probably wouldn't be used much again, if ever, but his part-time job at Mantis left him with time to spare. He could be skyaking, or being worshiped as the great originator of some of their future gadgets, but no, by his own choice he was in the family kitchen, being underfoot, while the love of his life was chopping fruit for a soup. His wife liked it that way, as well. This is how Barbara had felt a couple should be: together.

"Need the sonic synchronizer, back in a sec," Lloyd mumbled, shuffling out the back of the kitchen and managing to lightly stroke Barbara's left shoulder blade as he passed behind her. It didn't go unnoticed by his wife; she smiled – the kind of smile that exercises the corners of the mouth up to the eyelashes.

Phil noticed it, too. Something was forming in the back of his mind, or maybe it was there all along and he'd just noticed it. "Mom?" The words weren't picked out yet.

"In here, Honey. Hope you're hungry; I'm trying something special for dinner."

"Mom, why'd you marry Dad?" Barb stopped preparing dinner. "And why'd you want to have kids and have to put up with me, well I'm not so bad, but there's Pim! What were you thinking, Woman?" His mother's eyes teared up and then she – belly roared!

"Pollyanna has finally cracked! Frankie, where's a net?" _Rim-shot!_ Barb gave him such a look.

"Philip, what brought on your questions? Did something happen? Where's Keely?"

"Keely's fine, Mom. No, I'm just wondering, is all; I've got parents that are going on two decades of being in love and they're happy. The where and the when and the what you've got to work with doesn't seem to enter the equation. I'm just trying to figure you out. Trying to figure out life, I suppose."

This really is my favorite room, Barbara Diffy mused as she sat down at the table. "Son, you've lived your entire life with us, can't you answer your own questions?"

"No, and it's not the kind of thing that the Giggle is capable of understanding the question to, either. I mean, as kids, we have to do what adults tell us to. We spend our childhood wishing that we were grown up so we could do anything we want, whereever and whenever we want. Then we fall in love and want to make the other person happy, so our wants don't seem so important; trivial in point of fact."

"Uh-huh," Barb was following, but was still preoccupied with what had sparked this conversation. She leaned forward to signal to her son that she was interested. Phil? Well, he was almost, no, he was panicky.

"Uh-huh? That's all I get?" Phil started pacing. "Uh-huh? It doesn't add up, and then kids just introduce variables that make things more confusing. I mean, it's not like there are not enough people in world and we need to make more or we'll run out." Phil was running out of breath now and perspiring.

His mother took a breath for the both of them. She'd been waiting for this talk. Finally! "Honey, remember the very first time Keely asked you to go clothes shopping with her? I know how much you hate shopping -- clothes doubly so. Why didn't you just tell her, "No," and offer to see her later? That would have been the honest thing to do."

"It's not about honesty, Mom. Sure, maybe at first, but I learned to endure shopping if it got me more time with Keely, to smile, to carry ten shopping bags and like it. I like being with Keely shopping. That's the difference."

Barbara clapped her hands together and jumped up to give her boy-who's-becoming-a-man a celebratory hug, "TA-DA! You get it! I'm so proud of you, Phil! Now, go wash up for dinner, Honey. Honey?"

Phil didn't get it. Phil couldn't do the math. Barbara was a little depressed, thinking that she had explained it so well. Oh well. "Phil, your father is in the garage, go see if he can make it clearer." They both sighed and Phil started toward the back door.

"One thing before you go, Phil -- Did you really think that Keely asked you to tutor her just because she wanted to get a better grade in algebra?" -- and then she winked. Well, yeah, he had.

WHAM! BASH! CRASH! Not since the visit of Friar Fred had the Diffy's front door fallen. Pim scrambled over the door's surface and hurriedly wedged it in place. "MOM! Wizrd! NOW! A quick dive into the silverware drawer and Barb wizrded the door into place. "Somebody locked the door! Somebody is going to die. Come here, Somebody!"

"Pim, what's going on out there?"

"Nothing Mom, just the usual, my adoring fans -- "

"Try odorous fans. P.U.! Somebody has been messing around with pheromones, huh Sis?"

"Pim!" Barb gave a maternal stare, but Pim's full attention was focused exclusively on her soon-to-be-deceased sibling.

Phil knew that look. It said, "I'll get you Diffy, if it's the last thing that I do." Tonight, he'd have to --

• **Knock, knah-knah, knock, knock--knock, knock!** •

"The Diffys! What's going on here?"

Pim was issued another "Barbara-stare." Pim pulled the traditional Diffy roll of the eyes and then opened the door. With the grace of a chicken flying out of a revolving door, Neil Hackett staggered into the entryway. "There were H.G. Wells's students rough housing on this porch moments ago, and I have the sneaky suspicion that there is a connection to what happened in the girls' locker room today at school. Now I'm not leaving until I get some answers," and he turned and locked the door.

Phil and his mother exchanged glances that signified, "I got nothing." Phil's dad entered from the kitchen, playing with the sonic synchronizer against his front teeth, "HhhEee-eyyyY, LllLiiIiiSsststeennN t-t-Tuh-eww Mmm-Mmm-eeEeeEee, Buhharrbb!!-!!" Then he saw Hackett. "Moldy Gumdrops!"

"Ah, the plot thickens. Come over here, Mr. Diffy. We have a matter to settle, and I'm not --"

-- Pim reached over to an extra light switch --

"-- leaving until--"

-- truly, it wasn't much of a reach, then a modest flip --

"-- I—YI!"

Pim started chanting, "See Neil. See Neil fall. Fall, Neil, Fall," and then evilly chuckled. The floor had fallen away from beneath Neil's feet. Trapdoor. SplaSH! "Swim! Swim! See Neil swim! Swim, Neil, Swim – for your miserable life, and all the while I'll be taking over the Hackett assets, meager though they are."

Pim triggered the trapdoor back into place.

When they got over being stunned, the rest of the Diffys somehow got out, "PIM."

"Yes, dear family? Now, before accusations are made and punishments are proposed, I'd like to make it clear that this device was authorized as part of a security network by none other than the head of our proud household," smirked the master strategist.

"Lloyd?" blinked Barbara. "You agreed to this?"

"Sort of. I mean, there were a lot of ideas on the blueprints and the salesperson was so convincing."

"Pim was the seller, Dad. She probably planned to do this to Hackett all along."

"Now Philip, that's just not true. Mr. Hackett doesn't come over nearly enough to justify this degree of preparedness," smiled his evil sister. "I built it for Blondie."

Barbara stepped in, "How are we going to explain all this?"

"All automatically taken care of, Hon. It was covered in the brochure, right Pim?"

"True, Daddy-Dearest, but, uh, I better talk to you all later. I've got to see to the alligators now," and Pim grabbed a Wizrd and made her way to Tunnel Fivezy's entrance, her mother at her heels.

Silence.

"So, what's on your mind, Son? Have fun at school today?"

Phil gasped, not knowing where to begin. The last 30 seconds were a great example of what he was trying to get across to his mother moments ago. "I-I—I was going to ask you why you had kids, Pim in particular, but some questions are just too mysterious, too enigmatic, for the universe to comprehend," and with that Phil rescued his shoulder bag from the stairwell and dragged himself up the staircase. No energy for romantic locations tonight. Bed. Oblivion. Good.

"Oh, that's an easy one, Son. Your old dad was there, y'know."

Phil winced, "You're not talking about the 'Birds and the Killer Bees' lecture again, are you, Dad?"

"Huh? Did we ever do that? I thought that your mother handled that one. No, I was talking about the decision that your mom and I made about going from a couple to a family."

Maybe this time. "That's exactly what I was trying to talk to Mom about." Lloyd smiled. Phil would have smiled, but he had seen that same smile already once today, so he wasn't exactly filled with confidence, but maybe he had just enough energy to try this one more time. "I wanted to know why any sane person would continually tie himself down with more and more commitments, limiting his freedom to do what he wants to do in his life."

"Phil, you've been a Diffy for 16 years. Sixteen years of watching your old dad and I'm sure you understand the answer to that. Come on, what's really bothering you?"

Am I really that thick? Why can't I see what is so obvious to them? THIS is important; I have to get it or, or, OR WHAT?

• **Ding-dong •**

"I'll get it."

About time Pim got the door for once. Oh look, it's Keels. "Hi Keely."

"Step right on in, Princess." Pim's finger was on the extra light switch.

"NO-o-O!" Phil leaped over the railing and knocked Keely down just as her calves fell into the shaft.

"OW! OW!" This is not my night. Maybe I should talk to Phil tomorrow? Remember Via? Yeah, Via, the British Bruiser. Okay. I can do this. "Phil, I think that I hurt something."

"I'll help you in."

"No offense, but I think that I'll be safer outside."

Phil nodded and helped me outside to the bench swing, carefully avoiding the brass light shade hanging on the outside wall. "Don't worry about a thing, Keely. I'll be back in just a sec and fix you right up."

I smiled, but I couldn't help but wonder what that splashing sound was ...


	3. Where Lies the Truth?

Disclaimer: Disney used to stand for the F-Word. Now Raven just says, "snap," in place of another four-lettered F-word. What happened? Well, it wouldn't have if I owned PotF, which I don't. SNAP!

SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!

A/N: Thanks to all for the new lessons learned. They've been inserted into Chapter 2 for posterity.

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The F-Word – Chapter Three – "Where Lies the Truth?"

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It's nighttime and the stars are coming out for yet another performance. Rushing through the door, Phil brings out a box of heat bandages for Keely's right leg; he takes it out of its box and hands the bandage to Keely.

Keely could take it and almost does. Then she remembers about sensations. "Phil, would you put it on, please?" Not even a puppy-dog pout was necessary.

"Sorry, sure, of course." Phil reflects silently to himself, "Open up the bandage, or work the jeans leg back first? Duh. Keely will pull back the pant leg." So, Phil stands there.

"Phil?" He obviously got it wrong. He holds the heat bandage box between his legs while he gingerly slides the rough denim up and away from his Keely's sore, tender, ... soft, silky ... right calf, all the while hoping that he doesn't hurt her. Oh, Pim is going to regret this ever happened!

Somehow, Phil works the fabric back above her knee, bends her leg at the knee to better reach the back of her lower limb, and then begins peeling heat bandages.

"It's getting kinda hot. How many did you put on?"

"Just eight."

"EIGHT?" Her nails digging under the adhesive side of the strips, she rapidly tears off her treatments. That was hot. "TOO HOT!"

"What do I do, Keely?"

"Help me down to the cool grass – Quick!"

Truthfully, Keels could have gotten down to the grass on her own. Truthfully, the heat was already disappating. Maybe it was never even that hot. The grass is almost icy cool, but without dew. It felt great. Without the dew, the only spattering of dots anywhere are those in the nighttime sky.

"Keels, I'm so, so sorry. I ..."

"Phil, we need to talk." At first, Phil didn't know what to think. Worse; then he was worried. Wasn't that the line used in so many of the movies that he had watched with Keely – just before the girlfriend ended the relationship?

"Really, Keels, I'm sorry. I tried to ..."

Keely could see the pain and panic in her love's face and she had to help. "Sweetie Pie, it's okay. I'm going to be all right. Relax," _and with that, she ran her fingertips across his right cheek, stopping at his mouth._ Phil picked up the signal to shut up. He had permission.

"Describe me."

Time to talk again. Okay, and with that Phil started to describe what his heart's desire looked like.

What's a girlfriend to do?

Keely pulls a silk scarf out of her pocket and blindfolds Phil before he can react. Then she refocuses him, "Describe ME." She considers giving him a "Via-forehead-flick" ... chalk up one for Via's insightfulness ... but instead puts his head in her warm lap -- cool grass against his forearms -- and explains that she's out there among the stars. Lost. "Describe me so I can be found."

"First off lady, as a star, you wobble," Phil told his flaky girlfriend.

Keely introduced a little wiggle to her lap and a lightning bolt shot through Phil.

His voice crackled, "Yuh-yuh-you're warm, radiant, and a way-to-serious-about-the-direction-that-you're-traveling-in, blondish-colored stellar member. Although there are neighboring stars you're friendly with, you have someone closer to you than any other star could ever be," rattled Phil.

He tried to remember to breathe, slow down, relax. "There's a single, solitary planet orbiting you, very closely: Planet Phil. Captured by your gravitational attraction two years ago, he settled into a near-stellar orbit quickly. Lately, his orbit has been shrinking as he's become closer, _... Keely ran her hand from the nape of his neck ..._ more dear to -- _... to his clavicle ..._ you." _... then across Phil's chest, spreading and arching her fingers ... _

Her boyfriend grinned, knowing what was coming next, "Right now, he's so close that you could tickle him with hardly an effort."

_Pursing her lips, Keely exhaled across Phil's brow instead, causing Phil to paused and take in the cool air painting left and right across his forehead. _

"He, er, it -- it doesn't care where the Star Keely is headed; I, he, I mean 'it' just wants to enjoy the warmth of her presence."

Phil's attention was being distracted by the difference between the cooling night air and the warmth of Keely's lap. He shifted his head a bit, and then Keely herself better accommodated her storyteller to both their satisfactions.

"Cosmic storms, stellar nurseries, spatial anomalies, black holes, white holes, worm holes, donut holes -- Phil will accept what comes their way. Other stars may pass closely by, but Phil cannot be torn from his orbital path around you -- the attraction is the strongest recorded in the universe. It doesn't matter what comes our way; the only thing that matters is being there to share it with you. Sometimes Phil's orbit falls behind where you're going, sometimes he scouts ahead, but usually he's at either of your sides. Do you see us up there?"

Despite three years and eight million dollars in development, the heat bandages had nothing on the warm rush of blood flooding Keely's cheeks. She raised Phil's head to kiss him, but it wasn't her lips that he first felt, but her warm escaping tears when she lowered her head. This only confused him more for an instant, but only for an instant. Keely's lips didn't reach their target to clarify everything. She stopped short, taking in all that he had pictured. "Cuh-couldn't," Keely managed to choke out, "be clearer." "Thank you. I see both of us. A billion billion stars and I can glimpse our belonging together with absolute clarity."

"Where's that, Keels?"

"Not where. How. Journeying together. Apart, we'd be just another planet, just another star. Together we're special. Not just different. More than unique. Together, we're precious. Together we ..."

Images rush in rapid progression through Phil's brain as if they are being flipped through by some penny arcade's antique nickelodeon's time-lapse photos -- Keely and himself six months from now, six years, then sixty years -- this is HOW he wants to be, this is WHO he wants to be -- Not just who he wants to be with -- WHO HE wants to be! His fretful paradox is finally squelched.

Even into the early 22nd Century, adults were still asking children what they wanted to be when they grew up. It was long past time for everyone to grow up and start asking "who."

Phil possesses his new paradigm: **Ignore the distractions.** The where, when, and what are just the setting for their love, but how they perform in any setting is what the play is about, and who they are together makes them precious as a couple and more so as individuals, not less.

Barbara and Lloyd spied the young couple through the living room window, both realizing the growth that was happening on their front lawn thanks to their son's earlier interrogations. Lloyd took his wife's warm familiar hand in his. Truth: the where, and when, and what didn't matter squat. She drew him into a hug that they both knew she wouldn't be releasing him from any time soon. It was the same way with them. She didn't want an astrosurgeon; not a what. She knew who. He didn't care what he did or when he lived. He cared how she felt, her happiness, and he counted himself a winner in finding someone who always saw every glass as 90-percent full, always having confidence that everything would work out in the long run.

What about kids? Together, a precious pairing would want to do something extra special to reward the Universe for bringing them together. **To celebrate!** Ready to share their abundance of love, what greater present than a fusion of the two of them? Someone uniquely special, uniquely precious. That's who children are: a celebration of love.

Keely thought about the little moons that they would forge because of their love; imitating their orbit ... Luna? Europa? Callisto? Io? Time to hit the Net again soon for a names search. She wonder if this is how Barbara and Lloyd settled on "Pim."

"Phil, you got quiet all of a sudden. Are you all right?"

"Uh, nothing. Just thinking. Wasn't there a kiss racing toward Planet Phil?"

"Hold on a second." Keely sat up without warning and her blindfolded boyfriend's noggin made an impression in the lawn. "What about our kids?"

"What kids? Keely, we just started dating."

"Phil, we're going to have kids, aren't we? We want kids, don't we? You do want kids, right?"

Keely's habit of making conclusions leaping light years ahead of where their conversation had left off nearly always left him struggling to catch up, but not this time. This time, he was in sync. He reached for her in the direction of her voice and pulled her into his lap this time. "Kids? Sure, Keels, we're going to have all the 'F-words'. Now, about that kiss?"

"There's no 'F' in 'kids,' Phil. Not in 'children,' either."

"There's an 'F' in 'family,' Keels, and that's who kids transform a couple into."

Silence, then, "You said 'all the "F-words."'"

Still blindfolded, Phil raised his left hand into empty space and opened his fingers, asking for hers, which she offered. "Fingers that speak with just a touch. Feelings that we'll wear as our hearts on our sleeves. Fondness for all our quirks. Fidelity that you'll never have to question." Keely snuggled into Phil's embrace as deeply as she could, and he shifted with a wiggle of his own to accommodate her best efforts. "Fondness. We're best friends and always will be. Are those enough 'F-words?'"

Breathe. Gotta remember to breathe. "Huuh. I can think of another: Fiancé."

"I accept!" jumped Phil at the position offered.

"Wait, I was just, we're too young, we were just ... the job is yours. You started last week." Via was right: Brass ring. Engagement ring. Wedding ring. Ring-a-ding-Ding!

"Ah, my fiancée offers us a future. Another 'F-word.' Now, Keely, can I take this blindfold off?"

"Keep it on -- For -- a minute. Sorry, I ran out of 'F's." Keely rolled in Phil's lap and fervently freshened their feverish lips.

-- Forever Pheely --

fini

"Uh, Phil, what IS that splashing sound?"

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-----------------------

---------------------

Or maybe not "the end." WhiteRose6136 feels that this story isn't done, that "fini" doesn't mean what I thought it did. So be it. Chapter IV approaches, truth seekers!

Hope that was Pheely enough for all. Can Pheely be an honorary "F-word?"

Phil of the Future is on "hiatus," while Suite Life gets renewed and a MOVIE?

That's just sick and wrong.

Somebody recently posted in a review to another story the plea for anyone with a Nielson Family black box to be sure to watch Phil of the Future. In this, the information age where the most valuable thing is the information traded about each of us, broadcast companies like Disney have better sources for information than Nielson. Direct TV and the like have records that they can sell to interested sources like Disney about how many people are tuning into their broadcasts and when. So, ...

... set ALL your satellite control boxES to EACH AND EVERY broadcast of Phil of the Future and you can create a mathematical footprint 10x, 20x, 30-40x times what you alone watch. The longer Phil's on the Disney Channel, the more nagging the notion that we are right, that they made a mistake and would be wise to correct it -- movie, animated series, comics, y'know.


	4. The Truth Is What We Say It Is

my ponderings

Since the Diffys most often use food references for inappropriate interjections, and Mandy Teslow calls her daughter "pumpkin buns," "love muffin," and the like, did you ever wonder if the Diffys think that Mrs. Teslow is swearing at Keely day in and day out? Me, too.

-

Why'd Pickford pick H.G. Wells to dedicate their Jr./Sr. High School to?

After all, Herbert lost his university scholarship because he couldn't do the work, moved in to his uncle's house while teaching part-time at unc's school for girls and part-time tutoring his students. Next Herbie married his cousin living in his uncle's house, four years later he left his wife-cousin for one of the students that he tutored, has some children, later has two kids out of wedlock by two different women while still married to his second spouse.

Wells doesn't sound like the kind of role model that the Pickford school board would hire as a teacher, let alone approve dedicating a school after, does he?

-

Do you think that Phil of the Future was really canceled because Aly had a growth spurt and the suits upstairs didn't think we could handle her four inches taller than Ricki? Me, too!

-

Didya' ever wonder if the people who canceled Phil of the Future even work at Disney anymore, or if they, too, were canceled after their monumental blunder? Me, too.

-

Do you wonder why I don't own Phil of the Future?

Me neither.

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The F-Word – Chapter Four -- "The Truth Is What We Say It Is"

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HELP

Darkness

co-co-cold w-wha-water

can't feel the bottom

can't swim forever

there's something alive moving in the water ...

... guess I won't have to swim forever

Touching Me!

Mommy!

in the blackness I hear a voice:

**"Such a nice man. What could be taking her so long?"**

**"Grr-Rwaw-aw-awk!" "Grrwawkk!" "Rrarrorrh!"**

What's around me? Is it hungry? It didn't sound full. It didn't sound alone, either!

**Mommy!**

_SLAM! _Light from above. It scares them. No, I only wish that it scares them. Teeth -- Lots of Teeth!

Is someone else falling down? I just see a couple of dangling legs.

Darkness again.

Did someone say, "NO-o-O!" when the light came back on?

I think that I"m in a bad place. Maybe THE Bad Place.

mommy.

More light. This time with a blue beam.

The water's getting colder fast -- it's, it's frozen. The Teeth are frozen in mid-chomp.

I'm saved!

**"I'm Sav--quawk"**

"There, that oughta do it. One outta two ain't bad," Pim comforted herself in catching at least Hackett in a trap. She made sure that the Omnimatic Grabifier on her left hand was secure before activating it to retrieve the pygmy penguin from the cavity in the ice that Neil Hackett had occupied just a moment before. "Come here, ya little Neilguin, you. Mama says, 'Today, PengGooIns can fly.'"

Up the shaft rose the Hackguin, "Squack? Squawk! Squawk!" the astonished penguin protested as Pim kept him levitated in mid-air even as he cleared the trapdoor's frame.

"Squack!" the Hackguin still protests as Pim keeps him levitated between the floor and her other partially-gloved hand. Grabbing the Neilguin's neck, out the door Pim took her charge without the tell-tale blue shimmering of the graviton energy field generated by the 22nd Century hand-ware. Down the stairs, concentrating on keeping her grip on the vice-principal's feathery neck, Pim neglected to notice the outstretched lovers lying on the lawn – too late! "Peep?" The surprise pseudo-penguin found himself free, if almost squished by Pim's fallen frame. "Squack! Squack, squack, squack, squack SQUACK! He made a beeline, er, penguindart to his territory next door, behind him Pim cursing every item on a dessert menu.

"Hey Sis, finally got your date to dress for the formal?" quipped Phil in a stealthy attempt to catch his breath, forgetting how quickly Pim could change her focus to his own demise, or that of his Keely. Fortunately for Phil, there was no time for small talk, as Pim had to catch the small, but swift flightless waterfowl.

Fortunately for her, Pim's quarry was headed back to his own territory, his backyard. The 'guin cut through the wrought-iron gate and tried to get in through the back door. Pim was on his, uh, tail; she wizrded the gate's lock open and found the tiny penguin too short to reach the doorknob. The bird saw her and dove into the only water around, the prized semi-precious koi pond. "Dinner and a show?" quipped Pim, pulling up a white resin lawn chair for a better view.

Back on Diffys' front lawn, Keely had made a discovery that night, "Phil, we have an audience." Following the direction of her gaze Phil found his parents looking overly pleased with the sight of the children on their lawn. The youngsters smiled and waved and their counterparts inside the house did the same and with more enthusiasm. Much more. This made one of the couples start to feel self-conscious. Together, the pair made their way to the south side of the house. "Phil, where are we going?"

"The backyard will be a little more private."

"From the rest of the world, yes, but you saw your parents. What makes you think that they won't just follow us and watch us from the back?" As usual, Keely was right and just as predictably, Phil had a solution. Wizrd time. Instantly, the garbage can with "182" spray painted on one side was transformed into a pair of ladders going up each side of the chimney.

"Meet you at the top of the world." While they climbed they could hear Lloyd and Barbara rushing around inside the house from room to room searching for glimpse of their missing entertainment for the night; Lloyd calling out for the location of his camera. Each grabbing a hold of the iron retaining poles steadying the home's chimney, they swung underneath the poles, braced their feet against the chimney and settled in for their sought after privacy.

"Make a wish."

"Can't. I've everything I want."

"Everything?"

"In total."

It's not as hard as one might think to make out on a rooftop. It's a little cold, but if you're properly distracted, the chill is hardly noticeable.

"Philly – sorry."

"Huh, what? Why?"

"You know, I almost said ... why don't you like that ... never mind, you don't have to ..."

Phil nuzzled into the crook of Keely's neck. "You mean that you never knew? We have no secrets from each other, Keels. Not now or ever. I'll tell you anything." Phil sat up. "Marla Beauregard and the coco-nana smoothie stain? She constantly called me Philly-Willy, so when you call me that right after Marla was gone, it brought up that unwelcomed experience. Now though, I only flash on your smile when you say it."

It all made sense now to Keely. "Never again. I never realized. From now on ..."

"I'm fine with it now. Now that we're a couple it feels different and sounds special coming from you. I'm _YOUR _Philly-Willy, or Philster, or whatever you call me; just call me. Hey, look. What's Pim doing in Mr. Hackett's backyard?"

"Looks like she's watching a pig in a penguin suit. Look at that bird chow down on Hackett's koi! Gee, so Phil ... what would you like to change about me?

"You're perfect." Keely gave him a disconcerting frown. "What? I mean it."

"Phil, everyone has something. What do I do that drives you crazy? What would you change if you could? What would you ..."

Waving his finger at her, "One does not mess with the Mona Lisa, change Tchaikovsky, or remake Casablanca. One did not desecrate a masterpiece. I'm not going to say this again: 'Do not touch the Teslow!' I love her just as she is." Phil issued Keely a stern smile before putting away his finger. No words, just a thank-you-hug from Keely that Phil enthusiastically threw himself into.

Roving fingers managed to travel all over Keely's back during the hug. She noticed. Weird. Not intrusive, not icky, of course, but she had been noticing that Phil had become fascinated with her back. Weird. Boys are always commenting on girls' breasts, legs, hair, but Phil liked her back. He was mapping it with his every touch. When they were "just friends," he barely hugged back, hardly touching her. Now, his hands were everywhere at once. Well, not everywhere; he wasn't an octopus, but he was an explorer.

Like any teenager, there were things about her body that she didn't like. A blemish here, her nose, the scar on her back. The backward J-shaped scar had occupied the small of her back since that branch scribed it on her when she was four and falling. Right in the small of her back. The first time Phil put his hand there, he didn't react. For her entire teenage life she worried and cringed thinking about boys being repulsed by it. Phil accepted it as a part of her, like an extra rib or her bony elbows. Like his eight toes. How she played with his tootsies, in his room, through his socks in the broadcast room when they were tired, alone and had both kicked off their hot footwear, on the Diffy couch on movie nights while trying to fit four of his long toes in between the spaces of five of her own. Those eight toes weren't ugly and she wouldn't want Phil to Wizrd his feet to a standard compliment of ten for anything. The small of her back, that scar, must have been the same for Phil; his fingers usually started and ended their journeys there. Around Phil, that etching no longer was an imperfection; funny thing was, under his attentions all her features didn't seem like imperfections any longer. They were strangely comforting. He found beauty in all of her and she had learned long ago that Phil's feelings were sincere. They were the perfect couple, or close enough for them. Now that his family was back they would have time to grow up and grow old together. Their future would be the kind that "happily ever after" is all about. They would stand side by side and never be separated.

She squeezed him tighter, feeling his 5 o'clock shadow scratch across the side of her chin, giving her a flash of a long idle memory of her father, a pleasant one. "Whisker-burns," he had called them. Keely looked into her fiancé's eyes yet again, ready to tell him, "Phil – why's your medallion glowing?"

"What?! NO! Not Now! PIM!" He had pulled off his Omkar and was swinging it about to get his sister's attention in the next yard.

Pim was slow to respond; it was just her brother, after all, but when she saw that blue Disney-like glow arcing back and forth on the roof of her house, she checked her own pendant, also glowing. Almost imperceivably two words escaped her mouth, "Smart dust." They were coming. They wouldn't be stopped and not even Pim the First could defeat them.

----------------

The Finish of Keely and Phil?

_Finito?_

Or just a cliffhanger?

Only the penguin knows for sure.

Yeah, right.

----------------

Thanks again to WhiteRose6136 for having this story continue, getting the credit or blame, as always.

Additionally, I'd like to extend warm greetings to the return of some legendary PotF writers:

Samantha J. Mulder,

sureaLpink, and

Sultan Peppershaker.

It's great to have you back! Check their stories out and send them a wave.


	5. T Minus Truth, and Counting

Disclaimer : "Coming up next: Ricky Ullman stars in Phil of the Future--a comedy ahead of it's time"--for Disney. Us? We get it now!

P.S., just in case you skipped the first four chapters and didn't get it, I still don't own Phil of the Future, but I'm willing to consider offers.

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The F-Word – Chapter Five – _"'T' Minus Truth, and Counting_"

**----------------------------------**

**THREE YEARS from Tonight in 2121:** Third anniversary already. Barbara, Lloyd and Pim sat around the gaming spheres not really playing. They were interested in sharing stories about the missing Diffy. Favorite memories came to the surface, and everyone smiled and chuckled good natured-like. Everyone had something good to say about Phil, even his sister, all of them wishing him happiness in a better place. A large pepper shaker adorned a place of love on the window sill. Lloyd placed his palms on his bride's tummy, just an outdated custom, really. The fetus was safely tucked away in it's natal pod, but this was the biological link representing the source of the new member of their family. Not a replacement for Phil, but a brother that Phil would never know. How could he? Phil had struck out on his own, but pathfinders recognize that a frontier has costs that it demands of the courageous.

**THREE DAYS from Tonight in 2121:** Limited by emergency lighting conditions, investigators poked about Turbine No. 29 of the Angeles-Frisco Megacity Energy Station 17A. Didn't really matter about the poor light levels -- there wasn't anything left to see and that was the only silver lining they'd likely get.

"Pl-please, Mick, pl-play back the security cams just before the event," politely requested Don. He didn't really want to watch this again – who'd want to watch it again, but it was the professional course to take, what was expected of an investigator, third-class, who'd wanted not to be replaced by an android.

Springing mid-air in front of them, the hologram of the teen with the tour group filled half the platform around the turbine. "Looks normal enough," commented Mick in his high falsetto voice, "but what's he wearing?"

"A pudding jacket. It's illegal for anyone but police or military to have it. How did a kid get his hands on one? The poor, foolish boy. What could have been going through his head? If we'd only been here ..." Don always took deaths of kids personally, or the deaths of parents because he knew that he'd be the one to face their children and have to find a way to make the small ones understand that Mommy and Daddy weren't ever coming home again. For this one, he'd have to face parents, maybe siblings. Calls like this one made him long for a promotion and a desk job. He'd do anything for that.

"Here he goes." They both watched as the brown-haired adolescent climbed over the metre-tall railing and did a header into the exposed generator core. The facility's auto-Wizrds tried snatching him out of the air, but the pudding jacket made that impossible, of course. Even with a cold fusion generator, it was still fifty thousand degrees Celsius and the magnetics fried him before he even got close to that. Nothing left after such a dive. Such a waste. Teen suicide had dropped to zero after Scared Smart, the self-grading act of 2040. With it, students took responsibility for their own educations, so the only pressures placed upon them were the ones that they inflicted upon themselves.

"Check the railing for DNA traces." Don did just that; what's more, he even scanned for old fashioned fingerprints, since there wasn't anything else to find.

"G-g-g-got something. DNAs been appears somewhat damaged from the EM flare, but it's a good enough match with the fingerprints. Positive I.D. Hey Mick, we got us a celebrity here. Diffy, Philip. One of those that got the 'Thanks to the Diffys Law' written. Me and Duh-duh-Daisy was g-g-going to backtrip to the height of the Inca Empire for our honeymoon. Then, the Diffys bolted it closed for everyone." P-t-tui! Don spit on the handrail, the last physical evidence of Phil Diffy's existence and defiance of the World Council's decree. Guys like Phil Diffy didn't care about anyone's love or happiness – only about having fun at the expense of others. Donald would make out his report, but he'd let an android do the dirty job of notifying the family. Don always made a point of doing that himself; he wanted to make it to second-class, after all, but these were the Diffys. Nobody would fault him for not going the extra kilometre for the selfish likes of them.

**THREE HOURS from Tonight in 2121:** "Home, sweet home," a dejected, exhausted Lloyd declared. Once, it had been his single-minded intent to one day return here; months ago, he'd even made the trip part way here with his family. Now, it just didn't feel like a homecoming. It felt like an internment. The indignity of it all; to be forced out of their home in the middle of the night to, to, to "this." No, it didn't feel like home. Just a house. No, a box. "Be it ever so humble," indeed. There was nothing "homey" about this sterile habitat.

Barb was the most depressed she had ever been. No one had ever seen her this way, always teary-eyed, on the verge of giving in to complete and utter collapse. Her throat constricted, rapid and shallow breathing, Lloyd tried to comfort his wife with a hug, but no matter how tightly he held her, she sank deeper into her depression. They were lepers here, one step above mass-murders and game show hosts. Hated and despised, oh they'd be shunned. Barbara couldn't shake the shame and embarrassment heaped upon her family. Going home was never suppose to be like this. Nothing could be worse than this future they had returned to. Nothing. She wanted to go home.

Phil was chipper! "Isn't it great to be home? Home, sweet home! Hey, Mom, want to go watch the new vids? Dad, do you want to play some laser squash? Bet I can beat you!"

"Phil, shut up," Pim quietly advised and nudged him. This was going to be hard. She really did care about her family, she admitted to herself, then forced herself to shrug it off. Remember, she reminded herself, Phil's a loss anyway. "Dad, put Mom to bed and I'll take care of Cheese Spread, here." Never taking his eyes off of his bride, Lloyd returned a silent nod, while Pim ushered Phil to his room. The door opened for them and Pim quickly slipped off the jacket Phil had been wearing, Wizrded up a tub filled with crushed ice and plunged it in. Brr-r! That was cold. There was another one that her brother owed her. Her plan was working perfectly. Only a few days of siblinghood remained and she'd finally be an only child. Her fantasy would be realized at last! Pim couldn't wipe away her own grin, but then, she didn't want to.

After my brother's death is announced, public sympathy will sway my way. "Gone will be the stigma of Diffy being a five letter word, and in will come the bribes to keep me from repeating my brother embarrassing gesture against the World Council's order restricting time travel. I'll be offered power to willingly stay in 2121. Almost a goddess, I'll be bought off with a built in Wizrd with cyber control and cybersprite, which I'll mold into Berwick. Finally, to be able to both order her around and get in the last word!"

Pim noticed Phil looking strangely at her and realized how much she had blurted aloud. "Never mind. Go to sleep, Numskull."

Grabbing Phil's auto-refilling mug (soon to be hers), she commanded, "Hot double Dutch chocolate with micro-marshmallows." The cup instantly filled. Staring out of a virtual window, Pim Diffy smiled. Yes, it's good to be back and very soon it would be very good, indeed.

**THREE MINUTES from Tonight in 2121:** From high in his soon-to-be office, he watched the CCC's Timeflyer slow and come to rest in the corporation's fenced-off compound. The rear of the transport lowered, reminiscent a 20th Century amphibious landing craft, only with heavy puffs of condensation from the air heating up as it was displaced by the returning vehicle. His greasy fingers drummed against the windowsill. Did they get them? Did they get them all? What will they say? Didn't matter. Nobody was going to believe them. The Diffys were going down and he was going to rise from their demise. Andy watched the collection team escort off the offenders one by one from the vehicle, busily briefing their younger selves on how the extraction went and what to expect. What an efficient system! If the mission had been a bust, then they just tell themselves not to go, thereby cutting expenditures. By returning just before they left, they could forewarn themselves of any serious problems and ensure mission success within acceptable parameters. Two of the CCC operatives were now being taken out of the Timeflyer by way of stretchers and the conscious one passing on intel to his undamaged past self. Phil must have put up quite a fight. Good. It'll just bury the Diffys deeper.

"Marty, wha' hoppen? Did the caveman clobber ya'? Or was it the boy?"

Marty shot back looks of complete pissed-offedness at his colleagues. It was the girl. They wouldn't be letting him forget this for a long, long time. Thank goodness for the conference before his earlier self goes on the collection. The pain in his body and the one in his rep would never occur. He'd be able to warn himself about, about ... ooh, the sedative was kicking in big time now ... where was he? What was he doing here and how did his foot get pointed backward? Oh, look there he was looking at himself. There was something he was going to tell himself. Something important. Oh well, it'd wait until morning. Nightie night.

Tim and Doug were chatting it up with their predecessors. "... pretty much, yeah. They were right where Baxley said they'd be, but the info that he gave about the targets was as wrong as wrong could be. The hominid was part pit bull, the parents were slipperier than greased pigs, the girl – DON'T EVEN start us on that hellion! The only easy part of the mission was the son. Fine kid, the boy was exceptionally compliant. Wish my kid was like that."

Doug piped in, "My report is going to say that while Baxley's info on the where and the when cannot be disputed, something is definitely fishy about his info on the who and the why. My suggestions will be to not pay out the reward, nor finalize his hiring. In fact, if justice is what anyone is looking for," Doug gestured toward the Diffys being lead into the headquarters, "I'd suggest tipping off the little girl on the identity of who sold out her family. It'll be worse than anything that'll happen to the snitch by way of a legal reprimand. What we did tonight is a cryin' shame. There's no way this family was doing any of the things that Baxley-boy accused them of. 'Infamous' Diffys, my Great Uncle Zeppo! They looked as though they had acclimated themselves to the last century almost completely. I'm going home. I feel like I need a dozen showers after what we did tonight. This entire assignment is completely fubar." Sigh. "Only bad things are going to come of it; mark my words."

**THREE SECONDS from Tonight in 2121:** Gotta keep the pudding jacket or this whole thing's just a pile of moldy gumdrops.

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Welcome to the WhiteRose6136 Community Center for the Acclimatization of Readers to Cliff Hangers. This chapter is turning out to be kinda long, as in possibly as lengthy as all the rest of the chapters combined, so expect more chapter(s).

The countdown continues: Next stop, back to present day Pickford.

MISSING PENGUIN

BTW, yes, there is a reward for an absent penguin. Let's call him "lost" so as to not cast any aspersions. I'm not looking for any names, I just want him returned for Chapter 6. Paper bag filled with small bills. (Pygmy Penguin, small bills, hee-hee-hee) No questions asked.

Please leave your thoughts.


	6. Truth Under Fire

Disclaimer: I'm not responsible for Disney's reduced profits and plummeting artistic vision due to the "hiatus" of Phil of the Future. I don't even own it. Wish I did, because that is great story telling. Remember the days when Disney would capitalize every which way on one of their cartoons, movies, t.v. shows? What happened? So far, Phil of the Future is relegated to a single DVD (okay, there' s the bonus on the Christmas disk), a few scripts masquerading as books, and a video game. Was this a pilot that was canceled? No? What! It ran for two full seasons with fans demanding it continue??

"We're living in strange times, Daddy-O, when bad television roams the Disney Channel unrestricted, and no one can buy a Wizrd or skyak at Toys 'R' Us. Not even a stinkin' PotF coloring book."

Author's Notice: As was suggested by surreaLpink, Chapter 5 now goes back even further – both directions – with Plus 3 Years and Plus 3 Seconds. They're just a paragraph apiece, so they're worth your while to go back and read before starting with this here chapter. The first one was updated just before publishing this chapter.

Go ahead. I'll wait right here.

Doody, doody, doo ... back already? Gee, that was swift! You liked it? I'm so glad. Okay, on with the story!

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The F-Word – Chapter Six – _"Truth Under Fire"_

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**TONIGHT in Present Day Pickford Minus 3 Millionths of a Second:**

The nanite screaming is one of billions Pim programed her brother's Wizrd to crank out every night for months. It's just doing it's job. It doesn't feel any pain. It's screaming for another reason and it only has about two millionths of a second left to do it.

According to the algorithm Phil created to determine the likely entry vectors for any time machines entering Pickford, she had distributed the microrobots sparsely around community in a pattern that resembled the world's largest and sparsest snowflake. Wasn't perfect, resources were limited, but the bots were their one and only early warning system in case, just in case, the worst of the worse case scenarios happened. Ridiculous, actually. A billion, billion, billion nanites were needed to complete the sensor net; imagine the kind of luck needed for it to actually detect a time machine coming into town at this point in the grid's deployment. Needle in a haystack odds. Go buy a lottery ticket luck.

Like all of its kind, the nanite designated 0x237646804 is far too minuscule to be detected by an incoming TimeFlyer®, let alone early 21st Century inhabitants. Three months waiting for a moment of fame, then during the last millionth of a second of it's existence it's molecular circuitry is fried by the highly ionized hull of the incoming TimeFlyer, but not before it fulfills it's purpose. It's shrill cry throughout the smart dust network is starkly simple: "Positive Contact. THEY'RE HERE!"

**Aboard the CCC's Personnel Carrier:** Tim and Doug are giving the update to the mission summary, but confident they're not. Memories of their possible future selves exiting the transport are still giving them pause. This may take dozens of missions to clean up; those guys looked like they had been through a war. Despite what they had been briefed about the Diffys, they were still just a regular family, right?

Darlene kept her eye on the vehicle's camouflage on the heads up display; no sense causing more problems than they were sent to solve. No problem. It was stable. She was a professional and didn't dare take her eyes off the road for a moment to glance at the drama in the rear of the transport. Run over a cat, scratch a car, hit a kid, be pulled over for a ticket; it didn't take much of any little thing to alter the time line and it took even less bad luck to damage it enough to catch the attention of those monitoring the chronos for aggravation. Those'd cost her demerits. Demerits would cost her a promotion – enough of them could cost her her job. No Diffy demerits for her. The pilot's only responsibility was to get the team there and back without such incidents that'd require more return trips to erase the damage. At least the future versions of themselves returned with the TimeFlyer undamaged. She would do her bit. Milk run.

Nervously Doug ate another handful of nachos while Tim continued the update. "Here's what we know, all five targets are confirmed. The daughter is the biggest challenge, evidently she'll go down, but not without some damages to us, especially you two." Spin and Marty looked pale, the rest grumbled or snickered and pointed. Spin loosened his lanyard tie.

"Da Vess," Doug blurted out through a mouthful of partially masticated chips.

"What? Oh yeah, the vest. Evidently, the couple's daughter goes Wizrd happy and in her carnage, we have to outfit her brother with a pudding vest. Spin, Marty, that'll be your job. Get it on him fast and maybe you'll save us an extra trip back here."

"Da Gasses."

"What? Do you hafta ... oh, 'glasses.' Yes, we're arriving at night, so goggle up, everyone." The charcoal-suited men donned night-vision glasses that made the darkness irrelevant, and everything they saw in brilliant, living color.

**Back on the roof:** Even from this distance, Phil could read Pim's expression, making words between them unnecessary. He stuffed his now barely glowing omkar into Keely's jeans's right front pocket, took a deep breath and commanded, "Anybody asks, you only know me from school. I'm just a classmate, nothing more. Now, go home, please Keels."

"Phil! What's go--"

"No time! Go!" Phil swung under the pipe, then stood and waved his arms at Pim, knowing full well what she would do. Pim did actually question herself if she was doing the right thing. If she were caught, well, let's just say that some folks don't have a well developed sense of humor about these things. Nevertheless, he was her brother, so she aimed her Wizrd at him and POW! Phil disintegrated; vanished, anyway. Keely was too shocked for words. How could she do that to Phil? Yet before Keely could decided Pim's fate, Phil reappeared, slightly different clothes though, and complete with omkar on an orange cord this time.

"Phil, what's going on? The truth!"

"Thank you for a nice night, Keely. I have to go now. Please walk immediately home. Good night." Then, without even looking, he zipped down the ladder with his feet skipping every rung and headed toward the backyard.

Greenemia, morphed into another's body, mind transfers, raisins baked into an angel food cake, housing a caveman in their garage, Keely had thought she'd seen all the strange behaviors that the Diffy family was capable of. Even the use of their fantastic gadgets had become mundane to her. But this facade masquerading as her fiancé -- what's up with that? "Nice night?" What kind of talk is that for a fiancé? Pim! What had she done to Phil? Keely's eyes scanned whatever she could see from the light of the street lamps. First to the koi pond, then to the rest of the neighborhood, – all of a sudden the street lights flickered and died. All the lights in Pickford Heights Adjacent were out, even the prison. What's going on? Well, she wasn't going to find out on this roof. Time for action.

Pim was already inside. She could hear her parents upstairs, but where was Phil and what happened to the lights? She pulled out her Wizrd again and scanned the immediate area. Seven more blips than necessary -- six, if you didn't count Keely. Let's see, two by the time machine, two coming up the front stairs and, oh no, two right behind ...

"Hold it right there, Pee-Wee," ordered Roy.

"Rat Snacks," Pim let slip; however, she wasn't referring to getting nabbed, she expected that, but the plan ... "Guess what time it is. It's clobberin' time!" announced Pim.

"We don't plan on hurting you; we're here to take you home. Just come along ..."

"Oh, I wasn't speaking to you," Pim corrected. Her adversaries looked at each other puzzled.

"_Ka-Lunk_," collided their skulls. Roy and Walt never saw it coming. All they'd remember was Pim's menacing grin, then their goggles flew off as their heads struck the floor.

"Egata," a smiling Curtis replied behind them.

"Good work, thanks Curtis, now keep it quiet, will ya? I gotta check for the others." Nothing more behind me, oh no! One's on the stair case and another two are already upstairs and one more's in the living room, but where's Phil? Pim peeked around the corner. Sniffing the air, Curtis peeked at the fruit soup. "Curtis!"

"Teeyah Makkah?"

"What does that mean?"

"They come back?" translated the Cro-Magnon.

"Now is not the time to think of your stomach. We've got a situation here."

Curtis gave Pim a quick and quiet "no – duh" raspberry, pushed her aside and took point. Taking up a mop from the closet, Curtis dipped it in the soup, then rounded the corner in his attacking stance – he wasn't hunting; the prey knew they were here, but Curtis had experience being hunted while hunting his prey. Spotting the first intruder in the living room, he thrust the wet business end of the mop in the guy's stomach, then his face, spun the handle around planted the hard end in his now unconscious opponent's soon-to-be sore left foot. Instantly, the CCC agent dropped the extra pudding jacket that he had brought in. The caveman didn't even see his prey's cohort on the stairs calmly zap him with a Wizrd. Curtis froze, but Pim had his back. The high ground was no advantage against Pim's Wizrd doing the same to him. Didn't work though. Pudding jacket. Her target now was firing back, so Pim retreated for cover. She couldn't get a clear shot at him.

Upstairs, it was polka time. Thanks to another one of Pim's home security devices, the four adults were insta-morphing among themselves. Sometimes they were each other, other times famous historical figures or one another. Everyone was panicked and wrestling among one another. How would any couple feel if Genghis Khan and Queen Elizabeth ran into their bedroom and tried dragging them out of their house? Probably a lot like the elder Diffys, crying out for one another, threatening their attackers, and Barb and Lloyd are tall – great for leverage. Agents Tim and Doug definitely had their hands full.

"Pinned down, like a rat," cursed Pim at her luck. "The Wizrd is useless against pudding and I need the staircase intact for the plan to work. Pictures and knick-knacks were being knocked off the wall from Wizrd zaps. "Oh, Curtis?" she cried out with a sing-song lilt. She aimed her Wizrd at Curtis reviving him. Disoriented, but silent, Curtis picked up on what was going on and, now using his mop as an apricot, banana, kiwi, orange and strawberry scented spear, knocked the Wizrd out of the hand of their mutual enemy. Deprived of his Wizrd, Marty was still depending on his pudding vest for protection. "Curtis, tsee nah," Pim declared. Poor Marty didn't quite catch that, but the family caveman did. A quick bop on the head and Marty go night-night.

With steps creaking under her, Pim had made it upstairs past the stairway sleeper and Curtis, intending to support her parents' efforts. Passing the doorway to her brother's room along the way, she spied inside. There was Phil calmly sitting on his bed. "Okay, this can still work." Her parents weren't a priority if she could pull this off. After all, they weren't in any real danger, but she'd be. Pim grabbed Phil and positioned him behind the unconscious man on the stairs and one step lower, ordered Curtis to stand a step higher to hold the intruder upright between Phil and himself, and shake the hooligan. Then she climbed back up and wizrded a hole in the wall for cover.

From her pilot's seat, Darlene watched the blips of her team stop moving or make no appreciable progress. "Those jelly babies, we're going to be stuck on this retrieval forever. Eventually, stray Wizrd fire is going to damage the ride and I'll be blamed. Demerit city. Oh no, not again!" She grabbed a pudding jacket and Wizrd and left her responsibility unlocked and open.

Entering the house, Darlene saw what Pim wanted someone to see: A caveman struggling with Marty, Phil cowering behind Marty, and a ruckus going on upstairs, but out of sight. Then she saw the Diffy family daughter literally holed up and firing a Wizrd at Marty and Phil.

Pim cried out, "This is your fault! You want to go back! I'll get you Phil!"

A few badly aimed zaps with the Wizrd were still enough to convince Darlene that Pim met business. Diving for the empty pudding jacket, she threw it to Phil and ordered him to put it on. Zap! Down goes the caveman dragging Marty with him down the stairs. Darlene zaps away Pim's cover and Pim drops her Wizrd in defeat. Darlene picks it up carefully and motions Pim to lead the way to the noise at the end of the hall. Quite a sight to behold: Mr. Rogers, Ryoichi Sasakawa, Phyllis Diller and Mother Teresa all wrestling on the floor. Fully abandoning her "I just drive the rig" attitude, Darlene bellowed, "ENOUGH!" They stopped, except for heavy breathing. "What's going on?"

Rogers and Ghandi simply said, "Pim."

"All right, all right." Pim waved her hand beneath the doorway's arch and, one by one, everyone morphed back into their own selves.

Doug flashed a hologram of their retrieval authorization and then ordered everyone aboard the CCC's time machine. Sure, the Diffys had questions, but he was not in any mood to answer them, and what's more, he didn't have to.

Watching from the neighbor's well-trimmed hedge, Keely could make out Wizrd zaps as the only lights in the darkened neighborhood, and bits of the shouting. "Pim's really trying to hurt Phil. But that doesn't make any sense. Sure, she's Pim, but she's the one who wants to go back, not Phil. Not my Phil. Uh-oh."

The Diffys were led outside to the waiting time machine by Darlene. Pim had considered hitting her favorite extra light switch as they exited the house, but it seemed like overkill even to her. She had what they wanted.

Darlene commanded, "I'll take that pudding jacket back now, Phil."

"Are you sure that it'll be safe?" he reasonably asked, looking like a scared little boy.

Darlene took one look aft at her teammates being levitated to the vehicle, some of them unconscious. Then another look forward at Pim. Maybe the pilot had gotten lucky tonight, but how long would that luck hold? "Keep it on. Let's go," and they returned to boarding.

"Watch 'em," Tim ordered, "oh, and thanks," with a smile that recognized that she'd single-handedly salvaged the mission. Somebody from this squad would be finding her name on the promotion list after this. Tim rejoined Doug inside, already wizrding away the damage from tonight's escapade and erasing the Diffys's presence. Gone were Pim's traps, every drawer was emptied, and all furniture and personal family items were miniaturized. Curtis's garage was sterilized in all manner possible and the rented time machine was shrunk and stowed aboard their return craft. Finally, even Pim's tunnels were undone, filled in with compacted soil as if she had never excavated any of them.

Doug called out to Tim, "So, we good to ... uh-oh."

"What? The house is wiped clean. Whatduhya mean, 'Uh-oh?'" Tim spied Doug's Wizrd's screens and their detection of a heartbeat and heat signature outside. They headed out the door towards Keely.

Keely had just about decided how to try and rescue the Diffys when she saw Doug and Tim coming directly her way. Slipping behind a tree, she made it look as if she had been walking toward them all the time, but it wasn't altogether convincing.

Almost invisible in only their dark gray two-piece uniforms, their pudding jackets discarded, Doug and Tim approach Phil's fiancée on the lightless sidewalk. "Night, Miss. Watcha' doing watching the Diffys' house? It's late; watcha' name?"

"I'm a classmate of Phil's. We're working on a school science project," I respond indirectly. I don't like talking to strangers any time, but especially on a dark street and with my family in some oversized van. Phil said to just act like we only went to school together and go home. I trust you, Phil, but this is tough. I don't think ...

"Watcha' think, Tim?"

Keels looks at Tim's eyes; he's examining her face. He spots her smeared raspberry lipstick and his entire body language changes. Doug picks up on this and they both get ready to confront Keely. "On the roof?" Tim asks while jerking his head back to the house, having noticed both the ladders on the outside of the building.

"Yes, senior astronomy club."

"We'd like you to come ..."

They're both getting confrontational, trying to intimidate the young lady in the dark. A heavy handed tactic that works almost every time with most kids on dark nights, and especially a girl alone being accosted by two strange older men wearing sunglasses.

"Interesting lapel pin, what does 'CCC' stand for? Are you a locally based company? Where is your company headquarters located? Did you know that Pickford requires that all new companies get a focus story about them welcoming them to the community? Now, can I get your names and when I can send over a film crew for your interview?" Yes, that tactic of theirs should've worked, but Keely Teslow is not most teens. She's protected the Diffys' secret for over two years. Protected. Courtesy of the Giggle, she's glimpsed her future. She's accepted the confident woman that she's growing into being and it's given her the kind of strength that every young adult-in-the-making should be lucky enough to have. Whatever is happening tonight, she's not scared as much as she is furious. She can't yell at Phil, so Keely goes into investigative star reporter mode and takes the offensive, asking the kind of questions that the CCC has never before been confronted with and all from the innocent facade of blonde teenage girl. They're used to their targets running or being compliant, not turning and attacking. First the Diffys and now a blonde bull-in-a-china-shop. Doug gives Tim a look that let's him know that this isn't worth it. He doesn't want to spend two weeks debriefing at HQ over Tim being suspicious over some kissing. There wasn't any lipstick on the boy anyway. More importantly, Doug has laser squash tickets for tomorrow night. We're not going to make another trip back here and go through all that again! He twitches his head back to the awaiting time machine, signaling to his partner that it's time to get out of here. Turning, they retreat without a word and Keely heads home while holding back her own sobs. The time machine spins around in the driveway and heads back the way it came. Keely turns and follows running after it, the soles of her shoes slapping against the cement sidewalk. She's both surprised and tense when the street lights buzz and shine once again. Then a bright orange glow appears, a sonic shimmy, and nothing is there any longer. Not the strange van, not her family, not her world, and not her heart. She almost makes it to her front door without wailing. Where this tough, confident young woman unleashes twin rivers of tears onto her doormat, crying out against the theft of her heart.

Not the end ...

Please leave your thoughts.

**egata** surprise attack

**tsee nah** for you

To all that can enjoy an exceptionally good first "T," and now "M" rated (for suggestive eyebrows) Pheely story without Phil and Keely, I most highly recommend (translate as Required Reading) **Hourglass**, a time traveling epic by _**Mr. Fishy**__, who also graces PotF with stories_. Over 250 reviews are not wrong – that's 17 pages of reviews! Really, they're not! Beyond great writing, this is art! Plus, the author responds at the beginning of most chapters to my tortur – er, teas – um, Technicolor reviews? (Give me a break. I ran out of Ts.)


	7. Truly, Madly, Deeply

Disclaimer: Truthfully, I don't own Phil of the Future.

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The F-Word – Chapter Seven – _"Truly, Madly, Deeply_"

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_Author's interjection:_ Remember, it's all about perspective. Candy manufacturers add a little salt to make the sugar taste sweeter. Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4 were the sugar, 5 and 6 brought on the salt. Take a bite of chapter seven and see if it doesn't taste sweeter.

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**TONIGHT Plus 13 Minutes: ** "... seven hundred twenty-two Keely Teslow, seven hundred twenty-three Keely Teslow, seven hundred twenty-four Keely Teslow, ..." was whispered in the dark. 'Well, this pretty much sucks pickled eggs,' was thought in the earthy smelling cavity. "... seven hundred twenty-eight Keely Teslow, seven hundred twenty-nine Keely Teslow, ..." the counting continued. I'd give it to a count of 850. No, fifteen minutes was the plan! Okay, they should have rounded up the folks in two, another couple for C-man, tops, count on six more for his sister, thanks Pim, 30 seconds to Wizrd sterilize the home of our ever occupying the house, another twenty seconds to disintegrate Pim's booby traps and start filling in her tunnels. Shrink the time machine, take one last scan and vamoose back to 2121. This should have been over and done with by now. "... seven hundred fifty-five Keely Teslow, seven hundred fifty-six Keely Teslow, seven hundred fifty-seven Keely Teslow, ..."

Five metres below the family's home, sweet home, and slightly to one side, Phil was crouched down in the dark in one of his sister's machinations, but not her tunnel system. He was waiting for time to pass and tell him that the CCC had gone, gone, gone, or for the earth around him to engulf him completely as the CCC wizrded full Pim's tunnels, burying him alive. In here, though, he had a chance of not being discovered. Not a tunnel, Pim had made this chamber under Vice Principal Neil Hackett's house. Phil didn't ask why she made it, or why none of her tunnels connected to it. He had an A- average, after all. Sealed under twenty feet of earth; might as well be a coffin.

"... eight hundred fourteen, Keely Teslow, eight hundred fifteen, Keely Teslow, eight hundred sixteen, Keely Teslow, ..." Okay, surely that's long enough. If they were still here filling in cavities in the ground, I'd be dead, right? "... eight hundred twenty, Keely Teslow, eight hundred twenty-one, Keely Teslow, eight hundred twenty-two, Keely Teslow, ..." I mean, these recovery teams get in and get out fast. Unless, unless Pim had to improvise and decided to unleash her remaining stock of attack squirrels ... rambunctious rodents would slow down even a surgical retrieval. Well Pim, you always wanted to be an only child. Enjoy it, and thanks. Scraps! Lost count. Might as well get started.

Clicking on a flashlight, I take a look around the air pocket I occupy. It's not moist or damp, but it does has a mineral smell to it. Roughly the shape of an egg laying on it's side, the ten foot room has a rounded ceiling and floor. Wizrds are not the most accurate teleporters, so Pim made the cavity with room to spare for a margin of error. Explains why I was zapped nearly in the middle of the chamber and then dropped to the foundation. Where's that toy?

On one side of the cavern is a red toy wagon holding a device remarkably resembling a stripped down Wizrd, along with a couple of miniaturized suitcases.

Phil exerted an exhale, his first noise above a whisper in fifteen minutes, and crouched down next to the front of the Wizrd. "Here goes everything." Next thing he knew, Phil was action figure size. He retrieved a miner's headlamp that was resting on the upright wagon's handle like some head on a pike, turned it on, and started down toward the tunnel. "Ah, chunks! I forgot to move the rock before shrinking!" With the finesse of a first time camper trying to back up a trailer into a campsite, Phil finally had the Wizrd aimed at what could only be described as a humongous boulder relative to his present height. As stone shrank, it revealed a little tunnel for the first time. After he resized the rock, he pulled the wagon right over it with nary a bump and headed down the hole like Alice.

Inside, like the cavity over his shoulder, it was dry and had a heavy mineral smell to it, like a granite pit. His headlamp disappeared down the seemingly endless corridor before him. The tunnel had a fairly flat bottom and just enough headroom so he never needed to duck. Something else it had was a tremendous echo, and Phil figured that it would soon be getting on his already frayed nerves.

"Hello! ... Hello! ... Hello ... hello ..."

Yes, a good echo. Might as well make use of it. Reciting? Twenty questions? Singing? Sure! But what? "London Bridges?" No, let's not think about the roof falling down, either. "John Henry?" Sure, the tunneling man!

"When John Henry was a little baby," Phil screeched. All of a sudden, he flashed on how the song ended and decided that it was too depressing as well. Finally, he settled on a never ending solo of the Flintstones theme song, smiling thinking that Keely would have approved and would have been great fun to sing with. He was enjoying it so much that he started to get lost in his thoughts of Keely. How could anyone ever quantify Keely? Of course, Tia had:

"That's Keely. I've known her since the first grade. Yeah, She probably thinks that she's doing the right thing." "See, Phil, there are two types of people in this world. People like Keely, who always think about other people, and people like us, who I call 'Happy People.'"

"Oh, Tia!" Phil shook his head, and for some reason started singing "Billy Boy." By the time he reached the math portion of the verses, he was oblivious to the echoing. "How old is she Billy Boy, Billy Boy? How old is she, charming Billy?" "Three times six and four times seven, twenty-eight and eleven. She's a young thing and cannot leave her mother." Keely would have been a good deal older than that if he waited for her in 2121. Yes, the monotony of the unending tunnelway had been tamed by his father's good old American folk music, with a little assistance by Bill Hanna and Joseph Barbara. Indeed, Phil hadn't even noticed the light not going down the tunnel as far as it did earlier, nor the pair of eyes reflecting back at him.

It was almost five big feet in front of him before he heard it and looked up recognizing it for what it was, one of Pim's attack squirrels! At four big feet, he deduced that Pim had used the remainder of her stock to dig this tunnel – a use for them that wouldn't get her shut down this time by the Pickford local branch of the SPCS. (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty toward Squirrels) At three feet, he decided that that wasn't so important as not being attacked, or worse, eaten. At two feet, he was climbing over the top of the Wizrd in the wagon and trying to remember which button would be where on a standardized Wizrd. One foot. One chance. The tinny sound of the toy axle being reversed as the rodent's head hit the upright handle of the wagon threw Phil off balance. Phil knew that the simple handle wouldn't stop the subsoil attacker, so he dove into the only cover available, the underside of the wagon. It worked for a bit. It would have worked against a stampeding herd, but not against a digger. The squirrel quickly dug into the roof of the passageway and then along it's side. The first filled Phil's world with dust and dirt, and the second gave the creature enough room to tip the wagon over. Phil rolled and scooted back under it, pinning himself in the effort.

"I'm not going out after all this as a squirrel's sandwich," Phil announced, then caught sight of more furry stomachs coming down the pathway. "Not an appetizer, either." The hungry rodents had other ideas. His left arm pinned by the overturned wagon and it's ever increasing weight, Phil cried out from the pain and found his lungs choked with dust.

"kee--"

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Tears.

Her ducts long since emptied.

Sobs.

Not over, not under control, just reigned in enough not to disturb her mother inside.

Muscles.

Responsive, just incredibly slow. Standing back up is itself a herculean effort and there is still a flight of stairs before she can let go again in her room.

The doorknob turns with it's signature dull thud and then click, releasing the latch from the door frame's strike plate. She's home, and yet there's no memory of a time that was less comforting. Mandy doesn't notice her daughter's coming home, not the creaky steps, or Keely's bedroom door sliding shut. Without turning on the radio, there's no further notice of her arrival.

Desperately needing to be comforted, Keely has no one to turn to. How could she explain? Who'd even believe her, besides Neil Hackett? Keely lets loose her sobs into the face of her pillow; the pillow muffling all, but the pain. It wasn't suppose to happen this way. Everything was perfect. Why?

It was a good forty minutes before Keely's ears registered the world around her once more. First she thought it was radio static, then her mother vacuuming. Finally opening her eyes and looking up, she realized that water was running in her bathroom. Let it run. Who cares about water? It's just water.

She let her mind drift back into the pit that tonight had created for her. A void. If she couldn't escape the pain, then she'd be one with it. It was all that she had left of her Phil, so she couldn't give it up.

Water. Why was water running? An earthquake jiggled the tap? A broken water pipe? Now that could be disastrous for her mother. Still moving in slow motion, she entered her bathroom and found the sink running full blast.

"Well, at least it's not a busted pi--"

In the corner of her eye, she noticed the bathroom door slide closed. Ghosts? Not after tonight. They're back! The 21st Century powder room is a cornucopia when it comes to potential weapons: combs with sharply pointed handles, flammable sprays, electrical cords, perfume, ... Keely chose the cavewoman approach and selected a heavy glass bottle of mouthwash, wrapping her fingers near the neck of the bottle she swung around and – nothing. There was nobody in the room with her.

"Nice swing, slugger," came a high-pitched voice at her feet. She knew that voice.

"PHIL!"

"Hi Honey, I'm home," Phil smiled.

"PHIL!"

"Yup, it's me," still smiling.

"PHIL!"

"Keels, keep it down, willya? You're going to bust my widdle eardrums, not to mention wake the neighborhood." Grinning at first, Phil also gave Keely a look to know that he meant it. She was loud.

In her loudest whisper, "Phil! How did you get in my bathroom? Who were those men at your house? Why are you three inches tall? Is that dirt or a really bad case of dandruff? Where are your parents and Pim and Curtis? How did ...?" Well, Keely went on and on with questions, never giving her little guy a chance to interject a single answer, so he just kept on grinning and waiting for her to run out of steam, or breath.

"How did I get here? Underground, up through your house's foundation, then between the wall studs to finally come out from under the sink's cabinet."

Of course, he didn't want to put Keely through any more worry and stress tonight, so he didn't tell her what happened in the tunnel. But the smells coming off his dirty and sweaty body brought the memory of his brush with death back to him. True, his left arm was pinned under the wagon, but his right was still free at the elbow. On a regulation Wizrd, he couldn't have reached all the buttons necessary, but on this cobbled together version ... "Ladybugs," Phil thought before pressing the activation button.

A Wizrd's energy beams never seemed so beautiful as they were shimmering in the confined space. The digging stopped, and without squirrel-zilla on the other side of the wagon, Phil managed to right it once more. Half the size of his shoe, the former-attack-squirrels-turned-ladybugs hadn't changed their behavior; they were still intent on his unhappiness. Fortunately, Pim hadn't trained flying squirrels, so these little six-legged hubcaps stayed on the floor. Ever played with ladybugs on the sidewalk? Turn them over and they turn into no-necked turtles on their backs. Phil flipped them over and went back to retrieve his little red wagon and it's cargo. The squirrel had done quite a bit of damage to the tunnel, but the wagon seemed fine, except for the bent handle. Phil, however, was caked with dirt and dust that adhered to his clothes and sweaty skin and hair. Now vacant, the light from his helmet once again disappeared down the empty tunnelway.

"And miles to go before I sleep ..."

Keely was staring at him. Was he talking out loud? Phil shook off his reminesing and thought of another one of Keely's questions to address.

"Keely, how about you shut off the tap before I go on?"

As Keely moved to turn of the tap, Phil pounded out on the Wizrd's buttons and reset his height, watching Keely's gaze come up from the floor. He was still smiling when she planted herself upon his lips, lips gritty with sand. "Anyway I can get them," thought Keely, but all that she vocalized was an immense hum of satisfaction. Mercifully, she stopped long enough to let Phil catch his breath.

"I got here because this is where I have to be."

More oxygen deprivation.

"M-mm-mm. Nice. Okay, uh, what did you ask, please?" Phil wasn't kidding; he really had gotten lost in the kissing.

"Your family?"

"Safe in 2121. In a few weeks, Pim will clue them in on everything that's happened tonight. They'll be relieved, upset, melancholy, upset again at Pim, then she'll pull out our present to them, and they'll finally be full of acceptance and happiness for us."

"Present? What did we buy them? Lobster?"

"Even loftier. History. Our history. Pim's going to pull out pictures and recordings of our lives. In their bathroom in the future, they'll hear us talk to them, read our letters, watch home movies of us. Touch our lives whenever they choose. It won't be like we're gone; more like we're living out of town. Pretty good present, huh?"

"In a bathroom?"

"Safest place. See, Wizrds record what happens around them and Giggles are even worse. Fortunately there are privacy safeguards. The devices don't keep records of private emails, phone calls, or bathroom activity. Even nudists get shy over what can happen in a bathroom. Basically, the more personal the experience, the more likely the technology is restricted from keeping a record of the event."

"So, I could, say, call you up on your cell phone right now?"

"Long distance. It's in 2121. But if you bought a second cell phone, then I could talk to you anytime. You could text message me, as well."

"What about my diary?"

"Keely, Honey, the World Council only has one token male member. Making diaries off limits was one of the first things they restricted such technology from. Journal; journal to your heart's content."

"Now you tell me!" Phil's good arm got a solid sock.

Keely eyed the little wagon on the floor. "What's in the suitcases? I thought that you could replicate most anything with the Wizrd?"

Phil enlarged the suitcases. "That's pretty much true. Limitations based on patent licensing, world security, and, of course, mass. Of course, the Wizrd doesn't have the storage capacity of, say, a Giggle, so the preset generations are more --"

"Glick, glack, gluck. Phil, what 22nd Century tech couldn't you live without? A skyak? No, that could be spotted. A Giggle? Invisispray so we could go for walks? I know, the DNA resequencer-thingy so you --"

"Keely, Keely, Keels, when they took everyone back, they packed up all that we had. It'll be inventoried and another team will be sent to retrieve any missing items. I couldn't keep any future technology."

"So, what's in the --"

Anticipating her continued request, Phil had opened the cases. One was half filled with Diffy Diamonds, as Keely called them; the last of the exhaust residue. Paying for a degree in journalism just got a whole lot easier. The second case was filled with things even more precious: Keely's homemade tree ornament, his Dad's twangy mouthharp, a bottle of his mother's favorite perfume, the stuffed green frog that Pim slept with, and a self-portrait of Curtis done with fingerpaints on a flat rock. There was one more thing. A bit of cloth. Keely picked it up. Heavy. The pattern on the cloth looked like something from a nursery. There was Phil smiling again when she looked at him, except he was blushing a bit. Wrapped oh-so carefully in the swath of Phil's old baby blanket was the pepper shaker. "Because we'll know we're suppose to be together."

Keely squeezed the blanket and shaker, staring at them like they were making this moment real on their own. "Phil, what really happened tonight?"

"We kissed and you proposed, or did you propose first? Oh, and I accepted! You do remember that, don't you?"

Keely pretended to bop the lovable chucklehead with his own shaker. "C'mon Phil."

"We were collected," shrugged Phil.

"Collected? Wait. Those lapel pins. CCC? Convoluted Civilians Collections? California Conservation Corps? Calm, Cool And Collected? Coco-Cola Corporation? A little help here?"

"CCC: Chronological Custodial Corporation. They promote themselves as Time Soldiers, the protectors of tomorrow's civilization, but everyone calls them TTT, Trashy Temporal Twitts, janitors of yesterday's faux pas."

"So, they're time police?"

"More like chronological rent-a-cops or time janitors with badges."

"But who was that, I suppose it was a replicant, that went with – when they find out it's just a replicant, won't they come back for you?"

"Not this Phil Diffy. A few days into the future, Pim's going to set him up for quick demise. I don't know how she's going to enjoy doing it – sticking 'me' under a rocket's exhaust, squishing me between two racing comets, whatever! I don't want to know. All I know is that there will be little or no trace of me, and Pim will have gained the equivalent benefits of several years of psycho-therapy. We used both of our Insta-morphs to create a super-replicant, complete with internal organs, and to top it off, Pim spliced some of my DNA to some worms so it could get past blood screenings and DNA scans. When my pendant warned me that a time machine was approaching, Pim teleported me to a cavern she fashioned under Vice-Principal Hackett's house, activated the phony Phil, happily made him eat worms, and then teleported him to where I was. After that, I waited until they were gone, shrank myself down, and then hauled this stuff through a tunnel that Pim arranged between the cave and your house. Using the Wizrd to work my way up through your house to the bathroom was all it took after that. Easy."

"Wow, Phil! When did, I mean how did you ever come up with this?

"Remember that old 1930's detective movie we watched last year, the one where they ran out of suspects and you ate most of the popcorn? There was a line that stuck with me, "Who looks for a dead man?" Leaving you behind in the 21st Century almost killed me once, so I started preparing a back-up plan in case it could happen again. My duplicate would have an "accident" in a few days in 2121, so "Phil Diffy" will end in 2121, so no one in the future will be looking for him in the 21st Century. Who says television rots your brain?"

Keely didn't say anything.

"Say something, Keels."

"I'm just thinking. If they took back all your future stuff ..."

"Yeah?"

"... then where did you get this Wizrd here?"

"Always the investigative reporter!"

"You should have seen me a little while ago with the TTT, CCC, whoever. Never mind that now, how come you've got a Wizrd?"

"Smug," Keely thought as she watched his face. He thinks he has all the answers.

"Good thing Pim left, another couple of years and she probably would have taken over. (sigh) Didn't anyone ever wonder how I pulled a two-and-a-half foot long snack bar out of a twelve-inch deep locker set against a wall, a wall with a classroom on the other side? I installed an extra Wizrd. I had to build it component by component to get around the replication restrictions. It may not be pretty, but it gets the job done. It has most of the major functions, except the ability to record what it senses, and since it runs on a Proton Battery™, it will recharge itself when not in use. As long as it's not abused, Miss Teslow, it's a tool we can use."

Keely looks relieved and excited and then it's gone. "Phil, people are going to notice that you're not in school tomorrow. Is the CCC going to come back and set up a story? Can we --?"

"Will you relax, Keels?. They're not coming back, ever. They won't need to set up an excuse for our being gone. They'll just let the current course of events and the infrastructure clean up for them. We so often announced that we were moving the next day that even you were blasé about it. No one will think twice about our just picking up and moving. As for our owning the house, well, Dad never did get around to recording the sale at the county office. Eventually, the government will claim it for overdue property taxes and it'll be case closed on the Diffys, except for you and me. We're still going to have all our future and all our F-words.

She looked at Phil and then looked up at the ceiling, blushing.

"You know, when you said ALL the F-words, I was thinking about, you know. You know?"

"My, Keels, I don't think that's us – I mean, sure, we'll be doing, y'know, y'know – in a crazed mongooses in springtime kind of way, but it won't ever be the end all to itself. It'll be just another way that we express our love." Without moving, he softens his tone and pulls her closer with only his words. "You and I, we've always been about intimacy. Intimacy doesn't even have an 'F,' but for us it means fulfillment, satisfaction, and contentment, as in having each other in our thoughts, our hearts, our dreams. It's feeling our hearts trying to beat together, your catching me gazing at you when I thought that you wouldn't be looking, cuddling on a couch on movie night, and the heel of your palm giving me a back rub when we're stuck in a long line. I love long, long lines."

"Phil, think about it. You'll get cabin fever staying in my bathroom forever. This'll never work with you hiding from the world."

"I've been hiding from the world for two years. Good practice, I'd say, for spending the next few years in one of your dresser drawers."

"Huh?"

"Flashback to the Star of the Future Competition. I'll just shrinky-dink myself down to sock size and wizrd the drawer into my bedroom in your bedroom."

"Phil, you can't be serious."

"Beats living in the garage. Trust me on that one. No, I can make it livable, and it will give me time for quieter hobbies."

Evidently, I reflect, he's thought this through, including the pitch to convince me that it's no big deal to him, being stranded, shrunk, and hiding in the 21st Century. I'm having trouble buying that he's not crushed. Think of all the things Phil enjoys that he'll miss making him smile. I start creating a list to tell him and then it hits me. _ His smile! _I'm in every one of his reasons for smiling. Me. I'm his world.

"Aren't you going to feel left out, with me being the center of your world?"

"But Keels, you're not the center of my world."

Crushed. My heart stops again tonight. It can't take any more and I can't ask it to. No, it can't be my Phil saying this.

"We are. All I do for you, I do for us." Phil takes my hand and starts examining it. "Didn't you ever consider that I benefit from every one of your happy smiles, and feel sorrow every time your smiles are forced?"

It's gone unspoken of, but I've noticed your awkward little smile when I bubble over at your rescuing me yet again, finding pleasure in my relief. Never complaining about how long we spend at the mall, only when I make you try things on, and even then you do it. Asking me what's wrong when I'm not myself, and not letting me get away with a forced smile and "Nothing." Being there for me – for us. Philip Diffy, if there is a bigger word for what lies beyond love, it's "us." You love me so unconditionally, so unselfishly, so totally that there is an Us. 1 + 1 equals 3; our lives blending together into one. I thought that you stayed to be with me, maybe even for you, but it was so much more than that. You stayed for us, for our happiness.

"I'm greedy, Keels."

What! "Don't you dare say that! You're the most generous, wonderfu -- "

"No, Keely, I'm not. At least I wasn't. What I learned of giving of myself, I learned from watching Keely Teslow caring about more than just herself. You're amazing, Keely; you just don't realize how incredible you are. Believe me, if I was gone, there would be 10,000 guys competing to be the one to be there for you." Gulp, there will be. Everyone will think that I'm gone! "I want to be in each of your days and I need you in mine. Without that, I really can't exist in any century."

My vision is getting blurry – tears will do that. It would take 10,000 guys to approach one Phil Diffy. "That's why, the three little words?" I ask, knowing the answer.

"Uh-huh," is all he gives me back. He knows that I know that he knows that I know the reason behind his answer. Most people live by three little words, whatever they may be: "Do onto others," "Never give up," "Look before leaping," "Look both ways," "Count your blessings," "A penny saved," "Carpe diem," "Full speed ahead," "That's just life," "Live with it," ...

Phil's three little words are a challenge to himself, instead of an order, instruction, or declaration: "And then what?" He's told me that he pretty much lived day to day, like most people in the 22nd Century, one that sounds like a time populated by billions of party goers, the kind that never bother considering the consequences that will come with the morning after. Then he met me.

I think that it's part of the perfectionist side of him, maybe not going for perfection, but he's always thinking, now realizing that there is a tomorrow and planning for it. For us. He sure did.

I hear Phil sigh. He's been talking while I've been thinking and I've missed it. He takes a breath and declares, "So, that family is going back to the future, where it belongs, and THIS FAMILY, is never being separated. I love you."

Now, my heart is going so fast that it'll never slow down, let alone stop. Where did he come from? What did we do to deserve our finding each other? Neither of us has saved lives, built monuments or anything like that. We're just us. Life isn't suppose to be this perfect. Pain. I realize that we're both gripping one another's hands so strongly that our fingers hurt. Still, we don't care. We're here now.

Phil start wiping my tears away and turns them into mudflows. He's still grimed over in soil. "Guess I better finish cleaning up," he says, sounding happy and regretful at the same time.

Phil goes into the shower to climb out of his dirt clodded garments and shower, and so I can exit the bathroom without his being detected. I almost ask for his clothes when I realize that the only thing I can take of his out of this room is his -- our love. I put his sneakers back down on the tile and slide the pocket door close. The bottom drawer of the dresser it is, then. Most of the drawer is just socks, scarfs and mittens; I empty it on the bed, then toss a few old items back in – the Wizrd has to have something to work on to reorganize matter.

Mom's quiet downstairs, probably enjoying a cup of tea in her bedroom along with a phone chat with Mrs. Hawkins down the street. Out the window I can see the lights on at the Hawkins' place. Everything looks peaceful there. Peaceful everywhere. What a night!

I flop down on my bed, instantly launching socks around the room. I thought I lost Phil tonight. My best friend. Tossing a remaining pair of socks at the ceiling with a giggle, I smile thinking that we've won. We've beaten them, the heart breakers of the 22nd Century. Did they even care who they were stealing from me? Whatever the nastiest punishment in the future is, they would have deserved it. Phil's more than just another guy. He's loving, sure, but he's comfortably _romantic._ That's romantic without dominating or being pushy. He doesn't drag me around and I'm not an accessory in his life to be shown off. He sees me, caring more about my feelings than his own desires:

"Unless -- Do, uh, do you wanna be a couple?"

"No."

"No!"

Do you?"

"No."

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"I do."

"Me, too!"

"Yea! We're a couple!"

♥♥

"Date?"

"Thank you"

♥

"That's me, friend-boy."

♥

"The cake has a smiley face on it because you make me smile."

"Phil, this is the sweetest, (sighs) most wonderful, incredibly beautiful thing anyone has ever done for me."

♥

"Something else that I learned from time travel.

Sometimes you got to create your own timing."

♥

(Never taking his eyes off of only me. Sorry Via.) Yeah, they look great.

♥

"So, you did all this for me?"

♥

"I don't want to be your girlfriend. I want to be your boyfriend. I-I mean, your friend, that's a boy, a guy. You know, a guy friend."

♥

"Come on."

"No! I'm all gross."

"And me?"

"Okay."

♥

"I've seen you all grown up. Trust me, he'll ask you out again."

♥

"... a wise old man gave me some good advice." "Just taking it nice and easy."

"Hmm, good idea."

Best friends have each other's backs, but who's better at that than me and Phil? We play off of each other to spin teachers off his trail or convince Mom that she didn't see what she thought she did. Who's better than at that than we are? Maybe Phil. If I was in the circus, he'd be a safety net. If I was a statue, he'd be the rock-solid pillar raising me high and keeping me above harm. If I fall, he's there as my first-aid kit. In the dictionary, his picture is the definition for "_supportive_."

"I'll give you a dollar to watch."

•°

"You mean Vice-Principal Hackett approved our request. What changed his mind?"

"I think it was the tears -- I felt bad for you."

°•

"Did you stage this whole thing just to show me that real journalism is in my blood?"

•°

"That was you?"

"That's the first time we met."

"Phil Diffy, you are the most wonderful boy I've ever known."

°•

"Met her? You followed her around like a pathetic puppy." "We have to help the pretty crying girl."

•°

"Look, Keely, it made me tell lies. You have to believe that I would never say any of those things if I weren't ..."

"I believe you ..."

°•

"We could babysit together."

"Really? That'd be so cool. Ooh, it would kinda be like we were parents and both stayed home to take care of our kid.

•°

"Oh, Phil. It's all happening so fast. (snicker) What a team."

°•

"Oh, you mean the off limits kind. Phil Diffy, you're a genius."

•°

"Phil, that's amazing! I'm sorry I didn't have more faith in you. I should've known you wouldn't have flaked out on me unless it was super important."

"Forget it, Partner."

°•°•

"Keely, look, nobody actually does extra-curricular activities this early. The Sunrise Club doesn't even meet for another hour."

•°

Don't worry. We're going to find him."

°•

"Phil, you give me another option right now!"

"You and I work together to get over your stage fright."

•°

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Club Diffy is pleased to present the pride of Pickford, Miss Keely Teslow!"

°•

"Get over here, Partner. You saved the field trip."

•°

"Oh my gosh. That felt awesome and I owe it all to you, Phil."

Mr. Ginsberg says that it doesn't matter if you're acting the part of a hero or a villain, a walk-on role or the star lead, because everyone thinks the play is about them and how special and important they are. If all the world is a stage, then, sure enough, that's how everyone is picturing themselves throughout life, just listening for their audience to notice them, stand up and applaud them for being themselves.

Via's right. I'm not looking to impress others any longer. I've found my guy. I'm happy and content with my _appreciative_ audience of one.

"Hey, Keely is more than just a pretty face."

-◊-

"Yeah? Well, I don't see you asking Keely out, and you're always talkin' about how great she is."

"I am? I mean, 'She is.' Yes, I am. Um-hmm."

:◊:

"It wasn't just you. I-I kept messing up my line. Then I couldn't remember where ..."

"No, no, you were right."

-◊-

"... I'd give a hundred years of memories just to remember the most important, special, wonderful person I've ever met: Keely Teslow."

:◊:

"I can't believe you broke up with her by poem."

"You told me to be cute, funny and sensitive."

"Phil, Phil, you have so much more to learn."

-◊-

"No, one person is enough."

When I was six, we had Timothy, a orange, cream-colored tabby. I loved Timothy. He'd lie around the house on any sunny window ledge all afternoon long. But if I called him, he'd give me his full attention. Whether it was stroking his tummy while reading my book, or dressing him up like a baby and strollering him up and down the sidewalk, Timothy never sped off, never said "No." He _indulged_ my most every every whim.

"Stuff that your other friends might even find embarrassing."

"I know. Lucky I have you."

"Lucky me."

»«

"Is it cool having a friend from the future, or what?"

«◊»

"... and I'm stuck with Fuzzy Bear?"

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing."

»«

"I'm not sure that's a good idea. Okay, fine, but just this once."

«◊»

"Please?"

"Well, forbidden romance does call for forbidden hedge trimming."

♥♥

"Phil, I'm not going without you."

"Oh no, Keely. You go funk that party, all-all right? We'll--we'll be right in. I've got a plan."

»«

"After a while there, it was like we were married."

"Was it fun?"

"Yeah, it was fun."

"Cool, well, I better get to class. See you at lunch, Sweetie-Pie. Uh, I-I mean 'Phil.'"

♥

"Let's go to Italy for dessert. I want'ta get a cannoli."

»«

"But I want to dance."

"Okay. Fine. Real quick."

What's poking me? How did that get in my pocket? Not glowing anymore. It's done its job for tonight. Phil must have tucked it in there when everything started going crazy. Wonder if it'll still work, protecting us. Well, warning us, anyway. This warned us of tonight's danger, but Phil protected. Phil's good at _protecting_.

"Here. Rehydrate."

-

"... I used it in the boys' bathroom to remove a girl's phone number off the wall."

-

"No, nuh-uh, you've done enough. I'm going to take the heat for this one."

"Really? You'd do that for me?"

"What are best friends for?"

"This."

♥

"It's a blitz-quiz. Save yourself!"

-

"Keely, be careful of Pim!

-

"Why are you even doing all this? I mean, I'm the one whose life is ruined."

"I got you into this mess. I'm going to get you out."

-

"Back off, Fleshboy."

"What concerns my friend concerns me, Chiphead."

-

"Wow Phil, I love it. She's going to love it."

-

"I should have listened to you."

-

"Keely, don't worry about it. I have a plan."

-

"You, you're always there for me

When I need you most

Day and night you're by my side

Protecting me"

-

"Every since you and I broke up, Phil's been trying to get payback."

-

"Keely, listen to me. Tanner's not a good guy."

"You're an immature jerk, you can't handle it. Grow up!"

-

"Always. I like that."

"That's how I'm planning my future."

All this time I thought Phil was slow in the relationship department, but all along he's been doing things to make me happy, never demanding anything in return – two years with no conditions, no moves, no ultimatums, just taking pleasure in my being happy, in our happiness.

I'M THE SLOW ONE!

----------------------

I'm all gross and sweaty after that epiphany, on top of everything else that's happened to me tonight. I really need a bath. I'm about to make it into my bathroom when I hear the water already running. Poor Phil. He's really be through the wringer tonight. His family, his home, a normal life, and all for me, I mean, us. (Sigh) I guess I could use Mom's bathroom, even if it's just a shower, instead of a shower-bath.

I slip out of my shoes and half-socks, pull the wet tee from the back over my head. Shouldn't. I'll stretch it. Reach back and unhook one-two-three-four hooks and let the bra drop to floor atop the shirt. Jeans, the same. Everything just falls on the floor and lies there. I'm just too emotionally drained not to be a slob. Mercifully, the door glides open without a squeaky roller. Over the running shower, Phil never hears a thing. Flowered panties on the towel bar along with jewelry quietly laid on a hand towel; my best effort.

I can just make out Phil through the translucent sunshine-yellow shower curtain; he's grasping the shower head's pipe to support himself while the hot water blasts into his once curly hair. Poor baby. If I hold the far ring of the curtain in place to keep it quiet, it'll also cut down the rush of cool air entering the shower while I invade his private sanctuary.

He looks so totally vulnerable, so spent, so ... he groans ... so in need. Inhaling herbal shampoo, I make a memory to record and relive this moment. Who needs a Wizrd? Crouching, my hands warm in the hot water trickling off his body, then I stand and start massaging the nape of his neck. Another groan, this time it comes out reporting relief.

"Wonderf – huh?? Kee --!?" He tries spinning around and his feet miss the edge of the bathmat. I catch him in my arms and steady him like -- he's clutching at me, squeezing the water from between us -- we're touching -- everywhere; it feels so right. We're right.

"Easy Diffy, don't bre --"

"Keely, what, who, Keels?"

"No big, Sweetheart. But you're going to have to bathe with a buddy from now on, or Mom is going to wonder why the shower is running by itself." He can't come up with an escape from my logic. Guess he hadn't thought of everything after all. "You look like you need some swimming lessons, anyway, my love." He's puzzled. Good. This is fun. He's giving me that smile of his anyway, the one that says that he hasn't a clue, but trusts me to continue. His fingertips, ooh, wet palms, a hug, no – SquEEze! Oh please, let the hot water last! Tomorrow, I'm digging into my college fund and having one of those continuous hot water heaters installed, but tonight's shower's going to have to end sometime. A lot of showers are going to end in the coming years, with both of us having to sleep so close, but always alone until enough time passes for us to reintroduce a full-sized Phil into the public or anywhere a Giggle or cameras can record him. Maybe Phil's right and nobody will be looking for him, but we'll always be on our guard, or someone will come back in time and undo us.

He'll need another last name ... I'll never be a Diffy ... I'll never be a Diffy. Okay, Keely Teslow it is, then. I'll stay Keely Teslow, except I'll be wearing that wedding ring, my wedding ring. Oh-hh-oh, Mm-m-m! Phil's fingers in the hollow of my back! He's doing that thing of his with his thumbs. He sort of curls the edge of his thumbs into my skin, never going the other way and digging in. It's more like being stroked deeply over and over again. His hands, they're pulling me under the hot spray; my hair loses it's body and we both must look just like a couple of cats left out in the rain. Can't tell. My eyes are closed because 'wet kisses' just got redefined. Make that 'deep, deep, tongues-doin'-the-tango wet kisses. Mom, if you think that I spend too much time in the bathroom now, just wait!

Phil gasps, "Swimming lessons, huh?"

He's both surprised and disappointed when I pull his hands away and step back, not too surprised, mind you, to take a gander. Blushing reflex – I turn away, then I glance down out of shyness. Whoa, Teslow! You should've glanced down more often! 'Live from my bath, this is Keely Teslow with a special report. I can absolutely confirm rumors that' – focus! He's not a microphone. Okay, okay. Look up. I mean it, eyeballs! Not happening, so with my hands on my hips I straighten up and try to sound all swim coach-like and eyeball him with my eyes shut, "That's correct. Swimming lessons. Listen up. First, remember never to shower without a buddy. Safety first."

"Baths, too, right?"

"Oh God, YES!" Absolutely Yes! My imagination hadn't journeyed that far ahead yet; now I'm never getting to sleep tonight. Could we sleep in the tub? How long would the water stay warm? Would we even care? "I-I mean, 'Yes,' right, uh-huh." I'm babbling and he's smiling, enjoying my being all flustered; his hands running from across my shoulders to the bottom of my scalp, his left thumb tickles the base of my ear ...

"And second?"

"S-s-second?" Oh, yeah. Trying to recompose myself, I attempt to step forward confidently, "Second, Fiancé of mine, ..." and spin around, pressing my back against him, "... I think it's time ..." my fingers ask for his, he responds and I guide his hands over me, "... you graduated from just doing the backstroke." He'll never see it, but it's my turn to smirk now. Golly! I felt his smirk. Don't know how, but that was definitely Phil smirking! Oh Phil, we're going to make some great discoveries in this little room, the best room in the house, in the whole world. The future that we've chosen may make us have to wait years and years for a lot of things, but not everything, not tonight ...

"Uh, Keely, maybe we're moving too fast. I don't want you to feel --"

"Phil."

"Yes, Keels."

"You're going to live in my bureau, right? That makes me your landlady, doesn't it?"

"Well, technically – yes."

"Got any cash on you?"

"Now?!!"

I give him my "duh!" face.

He gives me his "I'm lost" look.

"I'm sorry," I turn off the water – cold, "but it's policy to require two months rent payment in advance," I grin trying to keep a straight face and fail miserably, so I move in for the kill. "Rent's due. Maybe we could work out an arrangement, Tenant." My hands go only where both of us have imagined. He grins back, hard, then turns the water back on. Oh, yes, our life's going to be just fine. No need to worry about our future ... did I mention to him about the cleaning deposit?

We kiss. For months now it seems like we can't go ten seconds without kissing; it's as necessary as breathing. Precious, desired, self-denied, and sweet, every kiss shares that message. There's a new taste to it tonight – maybe there all along. Promise. Each kiss is a now a vow, promising me to you and you to me. I'm yours, I'm yours. You're not alone! I'll never leave you. We'll always be together. Promise. Much more than than our naked entwining, it's this that supercharges our every kiss.

I need to pull away from his mouth, not for air; I need to add a new ingredient. Our eyes open slowly and then embrace. "Welcome home," I say to him, and this is now included in each kiss. Phil's finally home. We're home -- Forever.

∞♥

The F-Word

I really, really hope that you enjoyed reading this; it's the hardest -- not to mention the longest – piece that I've written bar none! If you liked it, send a thank you to the people who posted reviews – it would never have grown into the story it is without them, each of them is a personal Pim to my singing recitaled Debbie Berwick. They challenge me. They took my story to whole new heights – aw, nuts!

I was pushed!

Caught piece of Jane and the Dragon, a CGI cartoon series. Would look so much sweeter as Phil of the Future's season 3, complete with Keely being stranded in the future and let loose on its malls. Okay, enough rambling. Please share your thoughts.


	8. Absolute Love vs Absolute Power

Disclaimer: I do not own POTF. Neither does Pim, but that isn't important, right now. Without delay, those that do should inject pudding into their shorts before the Wizrd-bearing Pim finds them and then, their shorts will be filled with "pudding." Canceling POTF is just a lose-lose proposition, huh? Too bad they couldn't realize that earlier. And they call themselves "programming planners?"

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Consumer Notification: To deal with the skyrocketing demands for your own Phils, I've had to go to a numbering system to maintain the high quality that you all seem to prefer in replicants – no more ditsy Keelys either. Phil will be available in two popular sizes: Regular, and Cat Chow -- for those with jealous boyfriends.

As soon as the Proton Battery is fully recharged, okaie, being the initial reviewer for chapter seven, gets the first Phil. The rest of you, get back in line now behind her. No pushing and no buying a twelve-pack! Boys like Phil aren't a dime a dozen, you know. The cloned versions will take at least 15 years to be ready unless my misplaced NewAger resurfaces.

And now, because everyone including me has something better to do than watch Disney's resources spent on an Underdog movie rather than Phil of the Future, on with the show!

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The F-Word – Chapter Eight – "Truth in Print"

or

"Absolute Love versus Absolute Power: No Contest."

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Dear Journal,

All the F words, including** fight **for us.

(I chuckled aloud to the World, then continued writing.) Phil serenaded me with the first half of "You and Me Against the World" tonight in the shower. He sounded halfway decent in the shower, singing to his audience of one. Did you hear that? Phil and Keely vs. the entire Universe, and the Universe doesn't stand a chance!

Me? My life has been different since Phil was stranded here the first time. I mean, what were the odds of our ever even crossing paths? I think that Phil has it wrong; it's the Universe that's on our side and that's why it's the Future that better watch out, because the two of us are headed it's way.

I've only told you half the story about Phil, because, until tonight, I was worried about someone finding my diary and learning his secret. I'm still worried about it, so don't expect to hear everything. Actually, I'm going to be writing in you a lot less. Tonight, Phil's given up so much to remain with me: a normal life, friends, the rest of the Diffys; so much, his life, really. Who'd of believed that I would be in love with an outlaw and harboring him?

Barbara, Lloyd? If I get up the nerve someday to pack this journal away for you, know that I'm going to love and take care of Phil with total devotion and all my heart. Now, if you'd please give Pim a kiss from me.

Pim, you're getting off easy. See, if I was there, I'd hug you so tightly that it'd halt your blood flow! "Thank you" just can't begin to signify my gratitude. I owe you big, Sister, and I know it. Please look for something special just for you from me among the photos and letters to come.

Yes, I'll be journaling less. I don't need to write my thoughts down, because I have a man, my man, to share them with. Phil became a man in my eyes and heart tonight. He chose US and he made it happen. Gone is the boy that I cherished. Neither of us really faced the possibility of his father actually getting the rental time machine working one day. It was something so depressing that we just didn't want to have it darken our sky, tarnishing it, so it took my boy by surprise and he, the dutiful son, left with his family.

Alike hot water, you never value it until it's gone, so it was with Phil and me. When he returned, things were different. I didn't know how different! He made the decision to share a life with me no matter the cost, planning not only with me about our sharing a "normal" future, but unbeknownst by me, implementing this failsafe plan if the worst would ever happen. It did. Tonight. Our world should have ended, and if Phil was still just that obedient son, that boy, it would have. All of his promises would have been proved shallow and empty, our plans dissolved, our love – a mere shadow of what we believed and felt it truly was.

The night before the Diffys first left to go back to the future, Phil stopped his family from destroying the time engine and his father praised him, saying that they were so proud of the responsible young man that Phil had grown into. I disagree. The boy was simply reactive; my man was proactive. Taking responsibility, he made our future happen! Our love is real, and exemplifies true growth.

Our being separated by his family's plan to return to their home in 2121, even for an instant, ended Phil-the-boy. I could kick myself for not noticing the difference in Phil months ago. Phil chose the life that he wanted to have. He grew up on that ride; stepping out of one family and embracing another, his and mine -- ours. Love, isn't just a word. It has meaning, and it's not simply about being attracted to and enjoying someone's company. Love is about commitment – the big "C." Just as he told me on the grass tonight, he'll face anything just to be with me, to be the reason that I smile. From any guy, those'd be pretty sentiments, but only that. Phil's not a "guy." Every woman is looking for a good man who puts their needs and desires ahead of his own, who begins each decision by picturing her feelings and how it will affect them both.

But Phil is all that and more. He told me that I'm not the center of his life, that we are, yet he continues to make me feel like his world. He has sacrificed all in the hopes of continuing to be with me, one day marry me, and always be the one to raise the corners of my mouth.

Still, we'll have to wait years to reintroduce him into the public timeline, and I'll never get to be a Diffy, so I'll stay Keely Teslow (in name only). No, it's not anywhere near perfect, but he's keeping us together just as best as he can. That's a good definition of a man in any century.

Until full-sized Phil can be seen outside my bathroom, his days and our nights are going to be lonely, so I never want him to have to spend an instance waiting longer than he has to to hear from me. No more hours at the mall window shopping. Yes, I'll be writing in you a whole lot less, too. Maybe more often when we can be a normal couple. That's really all we want. Not the latest must-haves, not cruises nor a fancy place to live. Just to do the ordinary, mundane activities that everyone else takes for granted: to go for a walk – together; to sit down and share a meal with the only concern being not who sees us, but if anyone sees us playing world class level footsie under the table; to stick the dirty dishes out in the rain so we can instead spend the evening making out while listening to raindrops, to sleep together -- he, my pillow, and me, his blanket. That's what people in love want to do, are suppose to do, should be able to do. To fall asleep listening to their world's heartbeat, comforted by contented sighs and warm, encircling arms, and maybe a little snoring. Not us. Not yet.

My life, until then, will be going on mostly the same. True, we've gone from being a couple that everyone recognizes except me and Phil, to growing as a couple that no one recognizes except us. But I will still be keeping Phil's secrets, sharing how my day's gone with my best friend and, I'm sure according to Mom, spending too much time in the bathroom considering the results. Ha!

Tomorrow, I'm spending a sizable chunk of my own savings for one of those continuous hot water heaters. Our water and gas bills will skyrocket (I'll start paying for those this month so Mom won't freak), but trust me, the stash of flawless diamonds and eBay say that we're going to have all the good, clean lovin' that we want.

I'm not making us wait for everything.

›»Smirk!‹‹‹

Until another time,

Forever Phil's Keely

∞♥

Wouldn't it be a delicious legacy for Phil of the Future if it taught a generation of boys how to treat women and become men, instead of guys?

Please leave your thoughts if you'd like.

_For samantha mulder:_

Keely's right. This is how it was meant to be. The universe has righted itself finally. How did Phil get into the past in the first place? I detect the work of the Time Keeper. Now, if she'll just get season 3 on air, the universe would be perfect!

_To myself:_

Hey, welcome to the club. The F-word is the 44th Phil of the Future story over 20,000 words! How do you feel about that?

_My response:_

Well, okay I guess. I'll grasp at any straws to maintain the encouragement to keep writing. There are such mixed emotions after checking the statistics and seeing that each of my stories has recently been read, but their reader hadn't left a comment for any of them.

I guess Donald Shimoda is right: If your happiness depends on what someone else does, then you really do have a problem. Thank Pickford, there's a core of reviewers that do keep coming back and telling me what they really think. They're the audience to whom I write.

7/25/7


	9. Truth Is, This Is As Good As It Gets

Disclaimer: I neither own Phil of the Future, nor understand why this exceptional property isn't being further developed outside of our circle of storytellers.

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The F-Word – Chapter Nine –

"Truth Is, This Is As Good As It Gets"

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Uggh," escaped a grunt as Phil fell backward, landing on his butt. He had been pulling the cobbled-together Wizrd in its beat up wagon down the tunnel that he had just had it generate between the back of Keely's bathroom sink's cupboard, through the wall and through the back of her bedroom dresser and into it's bottom drawer. The wagon's front axle squeaked as if it had been used for years, instead of hours; that squirrel had done a number on it, from it's impact, to clogging the toy axle with dirt. The wagon wasn't on it's last legs; it was just annoying it's wobble and whining. He had had enough of it's cacophony, he had had enough of tunnels, he had had enough of -- the Wizrd's display lights -- his eyes adjust to their dim illumination -- other than some odd socks, the drawer was empty. Perfect. This was his world now, empty and without support. Alone, truly stranded in a backward age with primitives. He shook it off.

"No, that's Dad talking. Sorry Dad, that's just not me. I've got Keely. This isn't a barren space; it's a blank canvas, for Keely and me. Deep breath time. Okay, first things first, I'll start with the floor, no, the ceiling. It doesn't have one, yet."

Two-inch tall Phil stretches over the top of the control panel and activates the Wizrd. Part of a lone sock becomes a ceiling that seals off the drawer, turning it into a closed box, except for the new tunnel. Next, the remainder of the sock is used to add a layer of Sorbothane® sound proofing on the walls, floor and ceiling. Roughing out a floor plan in his mind, he adds plumbing -- seamless tubing actually, it wouldn't be right to call it piping -- for fresh and waste water, with their connections running down the base of the tunnel and tapping into the bathroom sink's fresh water line and just past the S trap for the fouled water. Electrical was equally easy to siphon off a little of the juice from the Teslow's electrical system. Wirings race around the walls and across the floor like they are being unrolled from invisible reels; adding a mid-21st Century transformer the size of stick of chewing gum to complete the wiring job by making the power direct current and safe for use. Another thin coating of sound proofing to embed the pipes and wires. The ceiling still three inches above his head, with a touch of his Wizrd, he transforms its appearance to a holo blue sky, complete with popcorn-shaped clouds traveling lazily in a southwesterly direction, and the entire area is lit by the pseudo sky, immensely cheering up the space by way of light and opening up the space -- the sky's the limit.

"The floor?" Well, a wood base would be a good choice, and so with little more than that passing consideration, it simple is. Now, walls or a studio apartment look? If this is going to be my world for the next few years, I'm going to want it to appear as big as possible. Time for another mid-21st Century design element: Chromotography dichroic colored panels levitate in midair separating the living areas. This would only be used in a three year old's room in 2121, but since Keely has never experienced it, I think that it will be a novel design element. "Is it me, or is it starting to get a little warm and stuffy in here?"

"It's not your imagination. There's no air flow, and using the Wizrd is putting out heat that is getting trapped in here," the Wizrd's Phil-sprite offered its two-cents.

Taking comfort in his own voice coming from the Wizrd, Phil answered back, "One ventilation system coming up, complete with random breezes." Zappidity -- zap, zap! "Better. That should deal with all the environmentals that the tunnel has to handle."

"So, you think that you're done now?" Mini-Phil inquired.

"Done? No. I wizrd up a floor over the tunnel's tubing, wiring and air ducting, and tops the tunnel off with firefly lighting throughout its length and a fake plumbing cap facade for the tunnel's outer door, but there's still plenty to do in here." I considered where to start next.

Working within the floating light panels, I'll start with the kitchen, directly opposite the tunnel at the other end of the drawer/room. A three-leaf clover best describes the workspace, surrounded by a semicircle of shoulder-height cabinets and major appliances. On the Sorbothane wall nearby, I flip up a few different choice scenes of exotic locations that Keels might enjoy. Finally, I settle on an empty Kansas wheat field.

Off to the right, I recreate our family's comfy couch. Keely's spent a lot of time on that couch with me: study buddies, movie nights, and quiet times when the folks had headed off to bed and Pim had just headed off somewhere into the night. I throw up a video wall opposite the couch; fine for movie nights, but with a little extra work -- there. Now, it's also a virtual window into Keely's bedroom, best view in the world. Mostly on a whim, a small stage is formed, rising just a half step above the floor, it'll be a fine place for my drums and her guitar. Another whim, and I whip up a phyble to serenade my love with some evenings, then a tasteful, clean-lined monolith. Kicking off a shoe, I slip the phyble over one foot and let the rest of it crawl up my left leg and swarm over my back and chest, forming strumable carbon nano-tube musical hoops in the process, with both of the reeds finally reaching my mouth. A quick ditty and I'm satisfied that it's in tune.

Shortly, I return from the wagon and gently place dad's bluegrass mouth harp on the monolith's summit. Weird. Dad's not dead, but I'm treating this moment like he is, like I'll never see him again, which I won't. Sitting on the couch, I try and shake that feeling, but realize that it's going to be with me for quite a while. It was a good decision to bring back the couch. I'm ready for a nap.

The Wizrd's sprite mocks, "Are you sure you have time to play perfectionist in each area?"

It's right. This has been the roughest, most draining twenty-four hours in my life. The couch feels so welcoming.

I awake after five hours of hard sleep to a household less than half done, and Keely will be here in just a few short hours. Worse, I'm out of ideas. Whatever inspiration I had, it left with the sandman. Keely's going to be here and first impressions are important, they say. I start decorating the outer walls with active scenes from around the world, places that I'd like to go visiting with Keely along with places that we've already shared. Then, there's the bedroom. I wizrd up several beds: different sizes, futons, heart shaped, futuristic, finally deciding on a Mexican Wedding Hammock. It looks like a spider web, slung from the ceiling, and suddenly I'm inspired. I zip back to the couch and add a lamp with a stand that looks like a paper clip bent and twisted like a crazy drinking straw. I add stools and wall decorations that look like fun advertising buttons and the like. I'm embracing my diminutive stature. Popsicle stick dining table, accompanied by twenty-second century snack tray hover-disks that approach when a hand reaches out.

To the wooden floor, I add rugs, artificial grass, sand, upholstered fabric, tile, even pebbles cover the floor, adding texture everywhere. Of course, the snack trays are still empty. Then, there's the bathroom to finish. Maybe I could decorate a wall with full-sized postage stamps and use a dime as a trivet on the table.

I prepare a meal for the two of us. I wanted to cook a real dinner for Keely, but there's no time and I've tried cooking before and it's harder than it looks. Sorry, Mom. I gained an appreciation for your difficulties in learning how to actually cook long ago. With no yummilizer, no spray food, I'm in for many more frustrating cooking experiences, but tonight, it's the Wizrd to the rescue. There, it's done. Just need to light candles. "Wine?"

"I would counsel against it. Do you think that Keely needs to be intoxicated?"

"No, certainly not."

"How about yourself? Do you need some 'liquid courage?'"

"No."

The sprite is really exhibiting an attitude of superiority, "Well, then, what's the point? Trying to act to some preconceived notion of what it means to act like a grown up, little man?" And with that, the Sprite's facial features morph from my own to Pim's. PIM!

Knowing where the tunnel was this morning, Keely knocks on the visible pipe cap, sending loud clanging sounds reverberating down the tunnel and through out the living area. At least the Sorbothane cancels out any echoing. Phil whispers to himself, "I better add a 'silent bell' to the tunnel to change the lighting in here." Kelly opens the tunnel's outer door.

Quick look around. Not finished, not yet right, not just ... what am I worried about? She's seen me living in a garage. A quick zap of the Wizrd and Keely's my size and coming down the tunnel.

"Hi."

"Hi." What was I worried about again?

"So, may I come in?"

"Sorry. Uh, no."

"What? Phil Diffy, if you -- what are you doing? Put me down right now! Eeeek!"

"Uh, no."

Keely stops struggling, giving in to tradition as Phil steps forward. It was silly of her to do so at the threshold.

Looking around, she takes in the view. The ceiling is higher than she had expected, and she hadn't expected the colored panes of light suspended magically in midair -- in place of the non-existent walls. She's reminded of the Pickford Exploratorium that she visited in fifth grade: lots of interesting things, but nothing really went together.

"So, you love it, right. Right?"

Keely bites her lip, but not her tongue when it comes to giving Phil her honest opinion about his layout. "So, this is a house of the 22nd Century?"

"No, if it was, then it would be much more laid out like a short ice cube tray with each person getting their own compartment. No, this is an eclectic mix of old and new, taking the best of each."

"Philly, I love you being here, but honestly, there are no transitions. I can appreciate eclectic, but are you serious about the thimble lamp shades and popsicle stick table? Were you really trying for the 'Tom Thumb meets the Walmart sales floor look?'"

"Sort of, but it's nothing that I'm married to. I just had trouble coming up with a theme by myself. Think you could rescue me?"

"It'll cost you a dance. Probably two."

On the stage, theirs is a slow dance, a close one, and Keely notices while they're dancing that she and Phil are the same size, courtesy of the Wizrd.

"Say, did you make me shorter or you taller?"

"It's all relative with scale, Hon. Does it matter?"

"Nope."

Now she's either going to call me her little man, or ask me what else the Wizrd can make bigger. Either way, she's going to give me an inferiority complex. She kisses me instead. I likes where this conversation is going.

"Kiss her, you idiot!"

"PHIL! Who was that?"

"Oh, that, that was 'Pim.'"

"But, but, bu ..."

Sighing, I tell her, "Come over here and I'll introduce you. 'Keely, meet Pim 2.0. Mini-Sis, let me introduce you to the love of my life.'"

"Phil, why would you --"

"I wouldn't. Pim would and she did. She rewrote the Wizrd's sprite with her own personality template. The result is an echo of Pim's personality. It still thinks that it's a Wizrd, and it will be pretty cooperative, but it'll have Pim's attitude toward new situations."

"Just new situations? How come?"

"This Wizrd doesn't have the memory, remember? Oh, there's a bit, but it rewrites over itself. Pim Junior, here, has the memory of a goldfish: about three minutes." I study Keely's concerned face as I spout off about this. "I guess that I could remove the current personality template and replace it with yours. Would you be more comfortable with that?"

"I like her just the way she is. It's like a little bit of Pim is still around."

Mini-Pim interacts, "I agree. Wait. Is that a short joke?"

"Okay, we'll keep her. To tell you the truth, I don't think that I have the heart to erase her. Keels, it's like they're all dead. I know that's crazy, but it ..." Keely holds me tight. I feel her love, her caring, her protection of me. Breathing, however, is tougher, so I move her through a light panel. When she opens her eyes, she squeals with shock and delight.

"Phil, you're lime green! I am, too!"

We continue our dance with every increasing speed as we dance through different panels, sometimes even just one of us, each time, the wavelengths of light reflecting off of us shift. Keely's mostly apricot at the moment, with a rainbow of shades coloring her left arm recording some of her near misses with the holo panes. She's giddy with laughter, and that pretty much blows away the dark clouds over my head. How does she do it so easily?

"So, you want to skip the rest of the place?"

"Not a chance. What's that I smell? You cooked?"

"One day. See, I just moved into the neighborhood and haven't gone grocery shopping yet ..."

"Where are my manners? I should have brought you over something to welcome you to my neighborhood. Although, it smells delicious all the same. I'm going to have to eat over here often."

I enjoy pulling out her chair, the way her eyes never leave mine. Enchiladas with a small salad topped with sliced strawberries and peaches make up the meal with a pitcher of cold water to wash it all down. We talk about her day, her mom's phone call at lunch, what her cat did this morning to her mother's slippers. She asks me about what will happen to Curtis in the future and I explain that he will be sent back to the past. His belly button could destabilize the world's economy. She laughs and I let it go. No need to tell her about the volcanic mudslide that will bury Curtis's tribe, preserving him, along with his Vanessa. Adding that his species will become extinct anyway wouldn't help, either. Keely tells me a nice story about her parents and their first place together -- a real hole in the wall. Keely's father was Mandy's one true love, never to be replaced. She had gotten everything that she wanted in life, a husband who became a good father, and their healthy little girl. It was their dream for the future to raise Keely and be happy together. It wasn't his fault that he died. Suddenly, Keely changes gears with an announcement.

"Blake Bastille! That was the first time I got to call you my boyfriend, even if it was to Neil Hackett."

At first, I'm lost, then, "I'm not -- I don't want to go through life as Blake Bastille." This is scary. I'm starting to think like Keely.

"No, not that. Philip Blake."

"Philip Blake? Phil Blake. Mr. Blake? Mr. and Mrs. Phil Blake." Keely's eyes light up. "I guess I could learn to live with that," I acquiesce with a semi-aloof expression. She doesn't stop smiling for the rest of the evening.

Keely finally collapses from exhaustion, pleasure, emotional drain – all of the above before ten o'clock. Lights are out, except for the pseudo quarter moon, but I can hear her breathing, sometimes even pleasantly sort of purring. While I was busy making plans for tonight, I hadn't considered the Keely-factor. Impulsive, no longer repressing her, well, anything, Keels took over the evening.

She started simply, just suggesting that we kick off our shoes and socks to watch a movie. Gotta admit, the new carpet did feel good between my toes. "Not enough," I caught her whisper.

She then declared tonight "topless movie night" and pulled my shirts over my head by their tails, almost scraping off my ears in the process. What could I do, but stare in shock, mouth aghast, while she grinned like a cheshire. This was Keely? This was Keely! A tilt of her head and a confident squint of those eyes spoke clearly on their own. They prodded me with, "Okay, Diffy, it's your turn. Come on!" When in Rome ... My thumbs had instincts of their own, slithering down her sides, then up under her blouse and raising the fabric up to her elbows when her lips appeared.

I must taste that mouth. Tastes of wintergreen candy from one of the floating trays, plus it's soft, and warm, and wet. This is sort of my turn at having her wear a blindfold. Mmmm ... and yet, now I want to find her eyes. Desire atop desire. Gotta be careful of her ears now. I wish Keely would stop wearing ear jewelry. She doesn't need it and I'm always afraid that I'm going to hurt her there, or hurt myself going after her lobes. Yet, if they make her happy, then I can tolerate them.

Keels giggles and starts channel surfing just like nothing has happened. Same old, same old. What happens next? Same old, same old. Asleep, resting on my chest, she's warm, both of us naked above the waist, her arms encircling me. Comfortable beyond words. Solace, nurturing, ... beyond words. Curious how without clothing our torsos just meld together as one. Right now it feels like one body with four entwined legs. One sleepy heart. Denim and soft warm skin, such dichotomy -- what a combination, yet it works. I allow my right palm to languish between Kee's exposed right side and her jean-covered hip topped off with a few voluntary strands of slightly wavy hair tickling the top of my hand. Does she know what these sensations are doing to me? Before she drifted off, she said that she didn't know if she wanted to gobble me up or just melt into me. Melt! That's it. It feels like we're melting together, blending into one person. I reach down and cup her cheeks to pull her closer.

If I try real hard, I can still taste her scent. While Keely was being all nonchalant, I noticed a new smell. What was it? Keely doesn't wear perfume. Flowers? Yes. Perfume? No. Never smelled anything like it before – then a word popped into my head: musk. I've heard it used to describe a woman's scent, "musky." That's got to be it. Thick, so thick and imposing that it crawls down my throat and threatens to block off my windpipe, suffocating me. Willing to pay its price, I inhaled it in deeper, welcoming its asphyxiating nature. Wondrous.

Last night's shower was fun. It was great. It was magnificent. We'll get around to y'know, you know, but we haven't even been officially dating long, a few months. We've only been engaged for a day – never even got to tell Dad and Mom, not even Pim. This is a special time, playing with each other, learning about touching one another. Exploring. I don't want to skip this. I want it all, because after going all the way, then what? There's so much to Keely. Sure, she knows my dreams and secrets and I know hers, but it's like our home here, we don't know yet what we're going to create together. Maybe "Pim-in-the-Wizrd" knows how long we'll be around together. Might be a little; might be a lot. Doesn't matter. I'm going to work to make certain that Keely never questions that I value every moment of us. It won't matter if lasts two seconds or a century; this is happiness. Right now, though ... I pull the afghan down from the back of the couch to cover her while I dream sweet dreams about her being in my future, our future.

But Keely stirs and drags herself back to consciousness. A moment to realize the setting, and a huge sigh follows, accompanied by a slow, intense hug. She's happy.

"M..m.mn-n."

"Sorry, I missed that."

She intensifies her grasp. "Mine. Mine-mine, all mine." There's her sigh again. Keely-cat is practically purring. Pure, undiluted contentment. Keely's content. Better than an "A plus" on a report card. Value beyond measure. My treasure.

"It's not enough, is it?"

"What's not enough, Keels?"

"Me."

I'm stunned. She's lost me again. I'll have to wait for the explanation ... now she's crying, her speech comes out as moans, sobs and gasps for air. Nothing comprehensible. I'm helpless. What happened?

"It'd, itt'll jusst be like before. Not ah-nuff. Can never be nuff."

"I – don't understand. What'll never be enough?"

"MEEEEE!" she wails from the pit of her being. No longer hugging me, she claws at the middle of my back and I wince.

Watching, listening, feeling her suffer, my heart is breaking. What changed? What did I do? Listen to her! I'm watching Keely die. All I can do is hold her tighter so she feels me refusing to let her be alone. This is my wordless counterpoint to an argument that I don't have the faintest idea about.

I feel her knees move up my legs; she's curling up into a fetal position, her arms start retreating from my back. This is not good. Despite my efforts, she rolls off the couch, landing on the braided throw rug. The crying is louder now and totally abandoned to whatever poison has snaked its way into her mind. I join her on the floor and surround her with my arms once more. Off me, Keels is exposed to me once again. Before the movie, it was arousing. Now, her nakedness only accentuates her frailty. What protects her? I rub her back, swarm over her cheeks and furrowed forehead with kisses. I start her rocking, and she joins in. A different response at last. Please, make this work.

Forever. Mathematicians are incorrect -- It can be measured. I've done it. Twenty-two minutes, eighteen seconds. That's how long it's been since she spoke. Forever.

"Sorry."

I don't know what to say. "Keely, talk to me."

"I'm so sorry, Phil. This isn't going to work, is it? I'm not going to be enough. This fantasy is a lie, just a beautiful, beautiful lie. I can't save you, save us. Years in here? It'll be just like before; you'll end up needing more friends than just me, but there's no one else, so you'll be miserable; we'll be petty and fight. Then we'll stop talking, then, then, nothing."

She says that as if it is a statement, but her eyes, her eyes plead with mine to tell her she is wrong. What can I say?

"You're right, Keely. One person just wouldn't be enough for me, not even my best friend. Not ever. Despite what we do to this place, it'll become a sensory deprivation chamber sporting a single contact, a prison with a solitary jailer. Or, you could be more."

She's taken aback. Now, time to drive out that poison.

"I'll need a best friend, a councilor, a playmate, confidante, back massager, consultant, food taster, reporter, dish dryer, remote control finder, fashion consultant, patient listener, art critic, puzzle-solver, editor, psychiatrist, lover, covers-stealing bedmate... in short, a wife-in-training – my fiance."

"It-it'll be crowded. I might have to get rid of a couple of pairs of shoes."

"That would be a sacrifice."

"Maybe Via could hold them for me, on trial, so we could all move in and keep you company?"

"Or maybe I could live in Vee's dresser, on trial, you know, so the shoes'd have more room?" She's going to hit me on my sore arm, I just know it.

I brace myself. Her face scrunches up, her fist balls, here's the pitch, she rabbit punches, pulling her fingered anvil short of contact. Tender kisses coat my bruised left bicep, so gentle. That's what all this was about, her fear of my being hurt, of our dissolving. I love this woman. She's going to give me a heart attack and kill me dead, but I love her. Tears continue to fall from her eyes, but even I know that these facial raindrops are different. So, this is what it's like, Dad? Chaos, confusion, and madness wrapped up with a heart so enormous that the real mystery of the Universe isn't about it's own origin, nor what comes after life, but essentially, how a woman's bosom could possibly contain such a finite heart filled with selfless, infinite compassion? Madness, Dad. Why didn't you warn me that total and utter madness is as good as it gets?

"Ask me again."

"What? I -- . Can we work, Phil? Can we make it work?"

I frown. "Not that, the other thing."

Three seconds. Keely's forever last three seconds. Enlightened, with some of her old Keely-confidence returning, she asks, "Will you marry me?"

"Only if it's forever, My Heart. Forever, and not a single tick less than eternity. I will not be shortchanged. Agreed?"

How long is forever? We're researching it now and we'll happily share the finding when we're done. Please, until then, respect the tiny, but heartfelt "Do Not Disturb" sign.

Forever

∞♥

To see the world in a grain of sand,

and to see heaven in a wild flower,

hold infinity in the palm of your hands,

and eternity in an hour.

-- William Blake

"Auguries of Innocence"

»◊«

Am I really done now?


	10. In the Fortunate Light of Truth

Disclaimer: There's an itch that I can only seem to scratch here, because I don't own PotF.

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The F-Word – Chapter Ten – "In the Fortunate Light of Truth"

**or**

"The Seven-Year Itch" 

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... Suggested by Jul ...

_The morning wake up song softly trumpeted in The Big Day. Niccolò Paganini's One String. She moaned. She never liked being awakened from a good dream. She made the effort to remember it before it forever evaded her grasp. There was ..._

_Slowly, reluctantly, like lifting the heavy lid off of a jewelry case, her eyelids raced one another to pry themselves open. There was her secret treasure before her eyes._

It had been a good year in the housing market, resulting in her mom wanting to spend more time with her only child, leaving less time for hubby. Mind you, mother did pick up vibes from her offspring of the need for some alone time, so Mom was still visiting an old classmate this week, and her daughter then took full advantage of spending the night in their love nest.

Saturday was to be the big day, the walk to their park in the light of day, so she was glad to have slept the night with him so they could give one another support for the day to come. They both had been having nightmares off and on lately. Bits 'n' pieces of which were all that he said that he recalled, except for the image of a CCC agent going through his old house's hallway bathroom and picking up the purple toothbrush out of the rack from all the others and studying his chicken scratching of her name inscribed on the handle from a wood screw's tip he had found handy. Thoughts like this, about things that she had no control over, haunted her now and then, but all of a sudden, they were making themselves right at home in her mind. How to evict them

puzzled her.

Her chin rubbed and rubbed against his left kneecap. They had tried lots of beds: gel, water, air, levitation, Airogel, sense-o-round, mattresses from the past, beds from the future, sleep furniture from every continent, and even a few islands and ships. It came down to this: like macaroni and cheese, there was nothing so comforting as the kind of mattress that you slept on as a kid. Spring. As far as conforming to their every curve, well, that was a matter of teamwork. Part of the fun. She tested her teeth on the soft sensitive skin below his knee.

"Yow! I'm awake!"

"I know. I always know when you're faking."

"Vampire. I married a sneaky, upside-down sleeping, blood sucking, press card carrying member of the undead."

"Hey, I'm not the one here who hasn't been out in the sun in ages, Mr. Pasty."

He rubbed his knee, and with his face trying to paint the illusion of his feelings being hurt: "I'm just running a little light because of your addiction to my AB negative. You're still a sneaky bloodsucker. Maybe you should try a twelve-step program; that, or I'm going to start munching on raw garlic." She hissed, showing her teeth, and went after the injured site once more. He feigned a wince while she kissed it and made it all better.

"Come on, time to get up," encourages his sleeping buddy, rising on her own to demonstrate how easy it is.

"Ten more minutes?"

She ignored him.

"This side of the bed is still warm."

That earned him a look of exasperation.

"Don't I even get a kiss first?"

Even though she had definitely planted one on his knee, she rounded the bed and granted him two more. "There, that's one for getting up and helping me with breakfast." He gave her a look that told her that he wasn't done listening. "Number two is for being brave today." Pausing for a moment, knowing that he already understood, she declared without faltering, "I'm sorry that I haven't been able to be here more often. I've missed you." Glances are exchanged that would break your heart. "Now, up, Lazybones! It's pecan waffles for breakfast; you can go pick the oranges."

He reached for his white dress shirt; too slow! She snapped it up, ignoring her robe still halfway on the foot of their bed, covered with her lacy white tennis skirt and camisole top. Watching, he was always watching, even after seven years of marriage. Whether she was undressing or dressing, he intensely took her all in, the buttoning, the combing, fixing her hair just so. Once he had commented that he was amazed that there were any male models, because women could make any clothing look desirable, but she understood that he meant her. She knew that he liked her in anything, but that he favored her in his clothes, of all things. Something about the contrast of her body in male wrappings or maybe it was the symbolic act of her claiming to be a part of him. To think of all the time and effort she spent learning about fashion, and he'd be turned on by her in just a sweat shirt and tube socks.

He resigned himself to his boxers on the chair, sitting atop the rest of his "coming out" wardrobe. She had gone a little overboard with the college preppy look. At least she hadn't gone for an ascot or worse, a yellow sweater tied 'round his neck.

No slippers for him this morning; he likes the different feel of textures under his feet: wool carpet, polished oak flooring, marble, rubber matting. They are like scenery for his skin.

No more colored light panes in the house. While she had fun with jumping though the panes, and later throwing clothes and food through them, she quickly became tired of their effect. After all, the chromoscopic values of the wavelengths reset after a handful of seconds. Organically in their place, she had decided on planter boxes filled with flowers whose colors set the theme for each living space. Dark pansies in the entryway, pastels defined the living room, green ferns and wild grasses, both wispy and attentive, enjoyed the bathroom, warm and vibrant red and orange tulips were the current favorite in their bedroom region, while the adjoining lemony kitchen was almost barren, sported only the occasional bowl of fruit. There were still some planter boxes in a waist height room divider between kitchen and the bedroom where they had tried growing some real sized herbs, but the plants' scents were just over powering. After that, planting their miniaturized versions were tried, but they just seemed weak as a divider in their place. This was a detail of their home that just wouldn't be cooperative. They had tried converting it to a stone garden, a bookcase, but it just wouldn't flow.

Picking up a cloth bag, motioning for a drink tray to float over and join him as he steps into the open lift and takes one last look at his wife joyfully singing away while furiously cranking the grinder full of pecans. Yes, he's adding it to the list: 2,179, that she sings when she works.

"Second drawer, vegetables, spices, fruits, wheat, flowers, art, dreams, and peanuts. All out." This had to be the only garden ever with works of art (well, that's what she called them) adorning its borders like an art exhibition. All his: still life, landscapes of times gone by, of H. G. Wells, and of the future. There were sketches of her, too, but he hadn't the confidence yet in his technique to capture her essence on canvas. She persisted in asking for him to paint her, but not yet, he kept postponing it. It would have to be near perfect, yet by demanding perfection, he had no portraits of her to show for his years of painting. Still, he couldn't have dreamed of a better patron for his artistry. Each painting, each sketch, had a small card taped near it listing the artist's name and the title of the work, along with a bid from an "anonymous" source. He had no use for money, so the bids were more personal: bids of two dozen kisses, 10 minute neck rubs and foot massages, and sometimes of his favorite bedtime activities. Talk about motivation!

"Oranges." Yes, that's what he came up here for, leaving their nice warm bed. He pulled on a piece of fruit and it left the branch without tearing the peel. He dug his teeth into the orb to break its skin, and pulled the tear down the side with two fingers until the segments were exposed. Sweet, soft and warm. Not quite what she ordered, but these were ripe already. With the bag on the floater, he picked a dozen large Satsuma tangerines to surprise her. She loved that they were seedless. No need for juicing, she gobbled them up, biting into them without any annoying little "stones." He reached to pick one more.

"Ouch." Little, yet sharp. Too bad they didn't come with painless thorns. Makes one long for a plemon, even if they were bland. Anything, but bland would describe the garden. Though from her mother's kitchen she could smuggle enough food in one of her pockets to last them both a month in their little Shangri-La, he discovered that he enjoyed learning to grow food to feed them both. He enjoyed preparing his gardening bounty in their kitchen as well, and the garden really had gone major. He could just about feed them both from what he grew, and even entertained the notion now and then of microsizing a cow or goat for fresh milk. Sure, she could fill a thimble with enough milk to last them for a week, but where was the challenge in that? Slowly, he had taken over her dresser: Bottom drawer was still their living quarters, and the second drawer up was the garden/art gallery. The third had an above ground fresh water swimming pool complete with water replaced nightly by way of a larger, second tap into the big house's water supply, so no chlorine was needed; a running track surrounded the pool's perimeter, not the edges of the drawer, so the drawer's space seemed larger than it truly was. To ease her mind he ended up using the track more than the pool; she was uneasy about his swimming alone, even in the shallow end. Treating him like a little kid? No, he realized that she just loved him so much that she couldn't bear the idea of finding him at the bottom of the cement pond, picturing his last helpless moments. He wouldn't put her through even the worrying about that, let alone the experience. The pool was only used when both of them were together. Not all closet space, although she had let her closet overflow into the fourth drawer, she had finally restrained her clothes buying habits over time. In fact, there were only six standing clothes racks, and two of them were empty. No longer were a focus for her anymore. She had other priorities. Still, he didn't dare add a smelly cow about her textile treasures. There was always the empty drawer up on top.

Down below, she already had the table set and had retrieved the shoe that he had hidden under the couch last night when he believed she was asleep. With care, she returned it to its mate under the chair on his side of the bed and frowned while reflecting on his action. Why wasn't he excited? They had been talking about and hoping and planning for this day for what seemed like forever. Why was he trying to submarine their architecture for his big debut?

Arms, she felt arms around her, then something more.

"Something's burning, Darling."

"Stop trying to stall, we are not going back to bed no matter how you ... oh, you mean really burning. Pecan Waffles!"

"Language, Mrs. Potty Mouth."

"That would make you "Mr. Potty Mouth?"

"I hate it when you do that."

Forcing a smile, "Oh, it's just a little burnt on the edges, and those two spots in the middle. Chips! Honey, I completely ruined our breakfast."

"Let me see that. Nonsense, it's not totally ruined. See? That one is yours. The next one's mine and I'm sure it will be tan, light and fluffy, with the wonderful smell of – wha-what are you doing?"

"Checking the heft. How much does science really understand about waffle physics and how much is just urban conjecture accepted as fact? For example, how big a dent will a cremated waffle leave, say when thrown by a starving, yet annoyed spouse? It's like a Tootsie Pop, 'the World wants to know.'"

Deer caught in the headlight stare, mouth dropped open, and finally sound comes out like it's supposed to, "So, I'm thinking, split the next one?"

"Really? No, no, no, I simply couldn't. Well, if you really insist."

Three-second pause, followed by the sound of a light bulb clicking on above his head, then a slow, very reluctant, "No, of course I mean it. I was only kid-ding. Have the next two. I insist."

"Yip-pee!" He watches her looking down, not longer addressing him, "What a good daddy you're getting."

The next three waffles are vast improvements over their predecessor, now dubbed "the sacrifice." Still, each is dissected in two, dabbed with butter, smothered in maple syrup and shared between them.

"Oh, how considerate of you! I mean, you're always going that extra mile, ..." A continuous monologue, she was not letting this go. He was constantly treated to her playful voice unless she paused between sweet bites of tangerines or maple drenched segments of waffle grids. Smiling while chewing, she had obviously decided on playing this game throughout breakfast.

While the morning dishes were rinsed and left in the sink, he noticed the result from the morning migration of the West Coast walking shoe. It had rejoined the herd somehow. Plan B.

"How about a quick shower before we go?"

"Just what I was thinking," came across the right words carrying the wrong attitude. "I'll be ready in ten minutes, so I expect you ready in five," and with that she headed down the tunnel leading out toward the big bathroom.

"Wait for me," he called out, but she simply held up her palm and shook her head.

"Nuh-uh, I'm not falling for your old tricks. Four minutes, fifty seconds."

"Come on, you know you like this shower much more."

"Four minutes, forty-five seconds. Care to explain your shoe learning how to play hide 'n' seek last night?"

Busted. "Fine."

Just to rub it in, she sauntered down the tunnel. He'd have to pick out a new shirt fast. Eight minutes later, she was ready and so was he.

Filling his pockets for the first time in years, he glances at his cell phone on its wall shelf. "Never know, might need it. Better safe than sorry." He unplugged both the power supply and the jury-rigged four-inch antenna. The electronics of it had no problem operating at cat chow scale, but in order to receive signals, it still needed a full size antenna to recognize the non-miniaturized wavelength's size. He took one last look about the home that he had spent all his daylight hours inside for the past seven years. Over in the living room was the stage now crowded with additions to the instruments he started with. He had added the cello, piano, and guitar to his repertoire, and when she rolled her eyes, he'd break out into a mediocre Italian accent, threatening to grow a handlebar mustache and take up mastering the accordion next, or perhaps a hurdy-gurdy.

The park, he discovers, has changed since the last time he'd been there with her. Their favorite bridge needed a new coat of paint. Seven years.

Soil plugs litter the ground from the Pickford Park and Recreation Department's aerating the soil to try and maintain it after years of constant use by more and more Pickfordians each year. Older, it still looked like a welcomed oasis, still visited by a new generation.

There are posters run off on a home computer telling which way to go to find Ashley's birthday party set-up in the park tomorrow, but they look like they've been hanging outside for at least a week. Someone else is missing a cat named Mustang.

Innocently running her palm over an elderly birch, she alters their direction without his taking much mind of it. They're both enjoying the moment. The "real" breeze against their skin, the smell of the trees, even the avoidance of some mutt's present left on the grass. This is different and it feels good.

Digging her fingers up the back of his scalp, she notices that he needs a haircut; it is getting a little long. "How'd you like to have a professional quaff your do for a change?" With just a look, he let her know that he preferred his regular barber. "Hungry?"

Sometimes, he still found her hard to decipher. What was she -- oh, no. They had just reached the top of rise when he saw her old church: the Pickford Mall. Her arm was pulled back as he stopped dead in his tracks. Too soon? One of her little smiles, her second hand joining her first, fingers offering an instance of reassuring pressure, a tug in the direction that she wanted to go -- he never saw it coming; he never stood a chance.

As if there were invisible doormen in attendance, the mall doors spread wide welcoming them in. Nervously he clutched her hand, seeking out reassurance over and over again; she provided it. When he relaxed some during their window shopping she managed to relocate their arms about each other's waist. Tension continued to drop like mercury in December, but this was different than it use to be. He was use to watching her shop -- it was the only reason that he tagged along -- but she wasn't really shopping this time, not even window shopping. He kept seeing her eyes in the shop windows' reflections -- she was watching him and checking to see if he was okay. Kinda sort of. Shop and mall cameras scattered about, but he figured "in for a penny, in for a pound."

Decadent odors tracked them down and made their mouths salivate. They orders a couple of chili dogs, fries and iced teas together and found themselves a faux stone table to devour them upon. Everything seemed naturally to reset itself to high school once more.

Teenagers not recognizing her, are having a conversation two tables away. They catch bits of the girls' conversation. Girls go on about how they are treated by their boyfriends. Drugs, betting their bodies among their buddies, Tattooing, piercing, bondage, anal sex, all so their boyfriends will stay in love with them and won't leave them. She and he share glances with each other, one hand laying in the other at the table while they eat.

The girls notice the "old couple" who must be getting off on listening in. They look out of place here, especially him. Time for some fun. The girls get up and sit down at the old folk's table. "Enjoying the Oprah session, are you? So, it's time for the audience involvement portion of the program." Grabbing the straw out of his tea, one of intruders uses it as a microphone. "Girl, what does he make you do?"

Her composure is superior to her partners; he's just not use to being around anyone save her. "Oh, the usual."

"Yeah? Like what? Costumes, role playing, multiple partners, humiliation, handcuffs, what's your safe word, ...?"

Tightened grasp, was it coming from her or him? "He makes me feel alive, special, important, necessary, unique, competent to whatever challenges come my way, empowered, welcomed, accepted, his nexus. You know, the usual."

All the girls scoff with attitude. All, save one. She has disbelief; no, that's not correct. She has the fascination of a poverty-stricken child being told about Santa Claus for the first time. "You really don't order her around, threaten, tie-up, make her do things to you or -- or hurt her? You don't punish her?"

His physiological response is outrage, but only for an instance, then his intellect takes the reigns and he feels great pity and sorrow toward her, toward all of them. His blood pressure immediately subsides and he slowly answers her straight in the eyes, his hand never leaving his wife's, "I have better things to do with my hands."

In her thoughts, his lover reflected selfishly, "You sure do!" and if she had been still a girl, she would have had more than reason enough to blush and break eye contact.

"Hurt her? No, this woman is the love of my life, my heart's desire, the source of all that is strong and good and beautiful in my world. I'm lucky to be a part of her. Why would I attempt anything to diminish her, to hurt us? Her hands are never to be constrained. I long for their touch, savor her embrace; they make me believe in magic."

"Ha! Until you want her to shut her mouth. I bet she knows the back of your hand real well."

"Yeah, what's it really like, Lady?"

She laughs a little, and grins with no restraint, as if she's enjoying a private joke. They'd never get it. For these young women, girls really – just attempting to escape boredom for a few moments by harassing them, support is alien to a relationship, tenderness is equated with the absence of belittling, malice, selfishness or of pain. They figured that they already knew all the answers, having done the math and determined that sex equals love. It would be like trying to explain how television works to a caveman. No, she recalled, that was far easier. Perhaps if she told them about the three words that he still lived by, or her husband's only demand, that she accept that in his point of view it was his place to keep her happy, healthy, and safe? How could she possibly communicate with them?

"It's one of the F-Words."

"Oh yeah, we know all about that," the girls chided her. "See, no difference from us." Taking their achieved sense of no inferiority to the older pair's relationship, the girls left and the couple continued their moment. It had been a great day.

Then, a presence was felt by the couple simultaneously. There was someone there. The CCC? Had they spoiled all their plans only to be discovered on his first day out? There were certainly enough cameras at a mall. A throat was embarrassingly cleared fifteen feet away from them.


	11. In the Fortunate Light of Truth, II

A/N: Poll regarding your leanings concerning 22nd Century gizmos is now on my author's page. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 11

Disclaimer: I neither own PotF nor live in the Pickford city limits ...

... except in my mind.

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Familiarity doesn't breed contempt or boredom, it creates comfort and security.

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The F-Word – Chapter Eleven – "In the Fortunate Light of Truth"

or

"Phil and Keely's Big Day Out"

or

"The Seven-Year Itch, part deux"

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... Suggested by Jul ...

... Faux Pas hunted down and killed by Jul and okaie ...

... being posted at last thanks to okaie's efforts ...

Then, a presence was felt by the couple simultaneously. There was someone there. The CC~C? Had they spoiled all their plans only to be discovered on his first day out? There were certainly enough cameras at a mall. A throat was embarrassingly cleared fifteen feet away from them, and though Keely's neck twitched, terror gripped her and prevented her from turning to face this unknown.

"Which one?"

"Pardon?" Keely replied, trying to sound innocent, but failing.

A little louder this time, "You said 'one' of the _F-words_. Which one?"

She looked at the girl. She was the same one, the only one who had addressed him during the entire interview. She was scrawny, like she had not eaten properly for some time, trying to remain skinnier than she should have. Her clothes were dark and fashionable, her hair? 'Daring' and 'Inventive' would be the polite terms to pick. Cosmetics? Skillfully practiced, maybe too much so, perhaps to hide behind. In summary, she was the girl Keely Teslow could have easily been on the path to becoming before Phil entered her life. This girl didn't know, let alone have, such a love, but she knew that she had a need. After all, she was the only one who came back to learn more.

"Lady?"

"Sorry. Senior moment."_ I hate being called "lady. It makes me feel so old. I'm only 23. She's, what, fifteen? My age when Phil's family was taken back to the future! What would my heart have turned into if I had lost him then? _"Which one? Oh, _'Love.'_" Keely took his other hand. This did not go unrecognized by the youth, so she let Keely's spelling error slide.

"How long have you two --"

"Nine --"

Abruptly, "Nine weeks? That's nothing. Oh, you don't know nothing. They're all the same at the beginning. They play the game until they get what they want, then they play their games to keep you down, on a leash, take away your soul, cost you your ..."

For the young woman, Keely's heart wept, for her and for young women everywhere who'd been treated so that the definition for "Love" was so diluted as to become just another four-lettered word. She felt her pain, the multiple assaults of her spirit, open, nerves screaming in exposed wounds that were so plainly visible, but she wouldn't let it suffocate her from a response.

"Years. Nine years." That wasn't true, but how could such a casualty from Love comprehend "Forever?" Nine years; still might as well be forever in her ability to understand what she was saying; better than trying to explain two years as best friends plus seven more as best friends and better.

The orator's rant ceased and her eyes grew wide. Her voice choked on the single word, "Years?" She studied the couple, their ease in each other's presence, their body language, their hands, and a smile formed in her mind, she'd never show it of course, but she believed them. They weren't putting on an act for her, themselves or anyone else. They were in love nine years. Nine years. Nine years and still intensely permeated in love; they actually appeared to run off the stuff. Her friends, her family, they were all wrong – it was possible. Try as she might, she couldn't dismiss the evidence before her. No illusion, this couple was real. They had attained "IT."

"How?"

They both just grew smiles, but said nothing. Their witness first was patient, waiting for either to speak and somehow expecting both to complete one another's sentences. When nothing transpired, she became upset. Here she had gone and recognized a couple with the secret, as far as she was concerned it was the secret to immortality. Isn't that what being happy from now on is? This couple had that and this was really living, while what she was doing passed for anything, but. Yes, she wanted what they had, but they weren't telling. Anyone watching the teen's face could practically read her thoughts from it:

Anger fought it's way to the surface, reddening my face; somehow I fought it down. No way I could let this go, but I couldn't blow this either; it might never come again. Everyone hopes to win the lottery's jackpot. Sure, a few win a couple of bucks, but how many real grand prize winners? What were the odds of actually running into the lucky winners here in the Pickford Plaza? What was that old saying about opportunity knocking? I'd ask again, politely; maybe they hadn't heard me.

"How can I have what you have?" I spoke with just hints of it being both an order and a plea.

He looked up first, but she spoke, recognizing the hunger in this too familiar version of herself. "You know that boy, the one that you can talk to about anything, the one who really listens?"

"There's no one like that for me."

"He's out there. Find him. Spend as much time as you can getting to know him and doing likewise. With a little luck, you'll become friends, perhaps even best friends, and there's nothing, noth-thing, as sexy as being in love with your best friend. It will go from warm fuzziness, to being complicated, and finally, if you take the chance, it'll consume you from your eyelashes to your very core."

Her own feeling of worthlessness viciously leapt out, "Easy for you to say, look at you, I'm ..."

He spoke at last. Not waiting for her to run out of insults or breath, he spoke without offering any signals that he was going to interrupt her. It was the warmest, most reassuring instruction that she had ever received. Nothing like the way her gorgeous boyfriend ordered her to do stuff, not even like any manner her parents had ever employed. "Close your eyes."

She hesitated only a couple of heartbeats, then, in the middle of the Pickford Plaza, she did as he asked, not even taking the time to feel self-conscious and silly, let alone question or challenge his direction. He continued with a voice that was both warm and strong, "Picture your ideal man speaking to you in the dark, just talking to you and you to him; nothing more than voices. Take a moment." Leaving her to that exercise of self-indulgence for a sustained pause, he then continued. "Did you notice things about yourself? How it's the most comfortable that you've ever felt, the most trusting, the safest? There's no place else you'd ever want to leave it for. Your heart is totally exposed, your guard isn't just down, it's nonexistent. Here's the secret: that's precisely how he feels about you, too. Perfection. Togetherness. Love. How could he not love you with all his being? How could he not want to be with you and share a future?"

"It won't last. It can't. Men get tired of monogamy and there'll always be new women around younger and prettier than --"

"No, that'll never ever happen; mathematically impossible. You're now his standard for beauty and perfection. Everyone else, no matter how closely they resemble you, will always and forever be too tall, too shy, too loud, not heavy enough, their feet will lack your size, sad creatures having corners of the mouth sitting the wrong way, they'll be overly graceful when they dance, too aggressive, too polite, not old enough, too tan, short of wrinkles ... just plain wrong. They'll never measure up and he won't bother trying. Instead, he'll pity them their shortcomings, and wish them well, but that's it." The man gave his bride's hand a little jiggle, "He wants you. He needs you, he'll only take account of the person you are each day – perfection redefined. He'll spend every day reminding you you're wondrous so you won't forget either, that he's amazed at how special you are, and how he still can't believe his luck. He won't have to put you on a pedestal, but he still finds you lighting up the room when you enter, and deadening the very air when you depart. It'll be the hardest truth that you'll ever have to accept: He loves you just for being you. You see, you're always in his thoughts. You're the one he wants to share everything new with, everything with; and when he realizes that, then he'll know that you're the one that he's in love with and always will be."

Her eyes were still closed, so she wasn't aware that the man had long already shift his gaze from her to his love. When he didn't continue, she peeked out of her right eye. There they were with their fingers curling together like twin hooking clasps, with just a little shake to them from the tension that they both were exerting. Realizing that she could be seeing the same image fifty years from now, a sigh escaped her. There they were, inhaling one another's kisses. They moved when they looked up at their audience, and a reflection from the woman's wedding ring caught the girl's sight. It was a beautiful ring. She looked to the man's left hand and found it naked.

Nearly reflexive, her eyebrows raised, then she looked to Keely. Keely understood completely and shot her a smile. It wasn't a "that's the price you pay"-type smile, nor a "I don't want to talk about it"-smile; no, this was her "he doesn't wear a ring smile. Phil was hers, possibly more than any man had ever belong to a woman, a wife. Faithful, he had never given her cause to consider otherwise, even before he went Lilliputian for seven years, and she knew Phil never would.

But one eyebrow just wouldn't go back down and the owner wouldn't relax completely either. Again, Keels understood: girl talk; no boys allowed.

"Honey, why don't you stretch your legs, do some more window shopping, maybe see if there's something good playing at the movies?"

Phil really didn't want to go, to be on his own, alone, in a big, scary mall filled with strangers, but he read his wife's messages without words better than most husbands. A quick kiss from Keely and he gave them their privacy.

-:-*:-:-*:-:-*:-:-*:-*:-:-*:-:-*:-:-*:-

The young inquisitor took up the seat Phil had left warm, took just a moment to get comfortable, then resumed her interrogation.

"Nice wedding ring."

"Thank you," Keely beamed about this for the first time in public.

"He doesn't wear one ... on his finger ... I noticed. Does he fool around much?"

"Oh, yes. Constantly ..." A sour face frowned back at her. "... but only with me." Keels grinned and added, "He's truly incorrigible," then blushed despite her best attempts not to. She just couldn't help it.

"So the secret is to be lucky like you and find the perfect man?"

"Perfection is overrated, and, no, he's not perfect. Neither am I, but he loves me anyway. Amazing, huh? Because of love, anything either of us does is something that we both benefit from – it's not work, and it's not a matter of splitting the work 50/50 so each does their fair share. It's about doing what has to be done, then doing what needs to be done to make things even better."

"Huh?"

"We made breakfast this morning. I made waffles while he picked fresh fruit for juice. That had to be done to make breakfast what it was. He didn't have to bring flowers for the table, but he felt a need to make the morning special. The flowers didn't make the waffles taste better or be more nutritious, but those simple daisies brightening the table did make breakfast nicer, more special for both of us -- not just him, nor me. Us.

So, I just need to find a guy and love him hard enough to make him into a good man? I've tried that. I do everything that he tells me to and he still hits me.

That's because you're stupid. Don't give me that look, like you've never heard that before. You're smart enough to see that he's not in love with you and that he's never really going to change. Why should he if he doesn't value you?

So, --?

So, find a boy who does listen, does care and does respect you. He doesn't have to be perfect, but that's the one who will change because your happiness is paramount in his life. You don't have to live high on a pedestal, but it sure is nice to have someone who worships the ground that you walk on.

How'd you change him then?

Oh, lots of little things.

Come on, give me a freebie! Something that I can use to get started. Please?

A quick look around to see if anyone is listening, then she whispers, "Chick flicks. Share a movie night and get him to watch as many of those as you can."

Are you joking? Gag! Even I don't like those. Give me horror cinema any night.

"Fine, don't take my counsel, but answer me this: would you rather learn something in school next week from a textbook, or watch a video in school?" It was a no brainer question. "So, you can learn easily from just watching a video. Now ask yourself what your boyfriend is going to learn from that horror flick about listening to you, treating you, and respecting you. Mega-zilch, but a romance DVD, that's completely different. Ninety minutes of sensitivity training without his even knowing it." She winked and the girl's eyes went a little wider. This old lady was slier than she let on. She liked that.

-:-*:-:-*:-:-*:-:-*:-*:-:-*:-:-*:-:-*:-

"Now, let's go find my husband," Keely announced, signaling to her youthful investigator that this interview is now over. Now, where would Phil go to on his initial return to civilization, a mall? Okay, she didn't really think of malls that way anymore, but still ...

Keely's young pupil refused to disengage, and instead peppered the mother-to-be with question after question as they searched for Phil's whereabouts.

"After so many years _(makes Keels feel old),_ don't you run out of things to say?

"Sometimes, but those are times that we can always use our lips for something besides talking."

Unable to shake her teenager-in-tow, Keely and her conjoined twin checked out Loose Soil, a trendy gardening shop, figuring that her green-thumbed spouse would likely be there. Not in the hydroponics section, not at the genetically engineered seed rack, no, Phil wasn't even among the organic manure sacks at the outside entrance to the store. How about ...?

"I'm sorry, you'll just have to listen from out here." There's just no more room in the store, " replied the junior assistant store manager.

Concentrating on looking for her Phil, Keely didn't think about listening for him. Christmas crowds in the mall are one thing, but this crowd wasn't moving; it was congealing. Already there were shoppers piling up behind Keely, eager to get a closer listen to what was spewing out of the entryway of Pickford Pianos. Inside was commotion of the musical sort, all the product of a single musician, playing both a synthesizer and the drums. Only half-impressed by this, Keely half-smiles. As his only audience, she's listened to Phil jam much harder than this on his Fybel; still, drums and piano at the same time ... Keely just watches him and smiles. There he is, surrounded by strangers, on his first day out. It was like watching a child go to school for the first time. Filled with pride, she nonetheless resisted the urge to capture a video of this with her camera.

-:-*:-:-*:-:-*:-:-*:-*:-:-*:-:-*:-:-*:-

Walking home, I muse aloud to him, "We really are lucky, aren't we, to have found one another? He just continues walking. Did he hear me, is he brooding, mad, reflective, what? Maybe his feet hurt. He's not used to wearing shoes. His left biceps, I capture them with my right and give them a squeeze. He squeezes back, but that's all. We keep heading back home. "Wanna stop for ice cream?" He shakes his head. He's not in a communicating mood.

"I don't think that I'm ready for this, Keels; this going out into the world. Maybe in a few months."

She looks him straight in the eyes, and sees him quivering. "Always my hero – remember that. We just took on too much today. Your first trip out was bound to be overwhelming, and to a mall, no less. Tomorrow, --"

"I mean it." For support, he stops and leans against the trunk of a dusty green sedan parked on the street. "I can't do this yet. It's just too hard. I'm used to being in control at home, but out here it's, it's CHAOS!"

Leaving the sidewalk, she crosses the strip of grass to stand away five feet facing him, just out of arms' length, to take stock of the situation:

Phil fell off the horse today and he's even paler than usual now.

I can't expect too much from him too fast. As much as we've dreamed of this day, I gotta remember what he's been doing for the last seven years with only me as his occasional and solitary contact with the human race. Basically, he's been in prison and just like that story I did on former inmates trying to fit back into a noninstitutionalized, nonregitmented world, he's without his bearings. Sure, he drove a skyak for years, but he only drove a car a little while and that was almost a third of his life ago. Baby steps.

"Chestnut, I'd be the happiest woman in the world to keep things as they are, keeping you safe and to myself, but that's no life for our daughter. She deserves to grown up, have friends, meet that special boy and grow up to be as happy as her mom and dad. She can't do that in a sock drawer. It's not going to be just about us anymore, we need to put her needs first." Come on, Pal, I believe in you! Come on!

No sigh, no straining, he just pushed away from the trunk and walked away from me down the street. He didn't even look back. After a half-dozen steps, he calmly said, "Are you coming or not? We've got a lot of work to do and less than seven months to get it all done." Then, he looked back and raised an eyebrow.

Yes, my hero. I claim him. All mine. Swinging our hands together, I start laying out my plans for the next day's outing, "For tomorrow, I'm thinking about a picnic. Now, the beach is nice. Lots of people, but no one really talks to anyone not sharing their beach blanket. Everyone's separated by invisible walls that seem to compartmentalize the multitude of beach blankets scattered across the sand. This way, there'll be people around, but you'll only have to talk to me." Or, we could go back to the park. But there was that birthday party sign. Come on! There's always --"

"Your backyard. Sunshine, fresh air, noises from the surrounding neighborhood, yet tranquil, peaceful, intimate. A good first step, well, second step, into the real world. What do you think?"

Without people about, not what I had really hoped for. Still, maybe I was pushing him too fast. And then there was the incident at the mall today. Maybe I took him there just to show him off to the world, or to show myself off? Hey Pickford, look! Stop the presses! Our lead story tonight: Keely Teslow is seen with a man at last. "Sure, it's a date." Compromise. It makes for a better marriage. Besides, Mom won't be home for another week.

Arms around one another's waists, she goes on and on with him saying nothing or just a sound of guttural agreement. She notices that he is reaching around her waist even more, making every bit of contact that he can as he deepens his one-armed embrace. Looking at him for the first time since the roundtable interrogation in the mall, she finds his face tracked with the paths of recent tears. Deep hug, deep, pit-of-the-being, energy transferring-styled smooching.

This has been an emotional experience for Phil, the equivalent of Keely's first virtugoggle trip – to a mall of all places. It would be easier for him to go back to living in the bureau, but she won't let him retreat. This is going to take time; maybe this was too intense today. For the first time, she realizes that it's not going to only be a matter of integrating him back into the public at large, but the other way around, as well. He never went out of his way to develop any friendships other than hers. He was cordial to her friends, their classmates, and anyone else he met, but if she wasn't involved, neither was he.

Fortunate. That's what they are. They have what can't be bought or sold, only realized, given, accepted, and hone. Made perfect.

"Nice girls."

"You think so?"

With a mischievous twinkle in Phil's eyes, he replied, "Well," smirk, "they did give me some interesting ideas for when we get home."

"Please, tell me that you're kidding."

They shared a practiced glance, each trying to read the other's face.

"I'm kidding."

She squeezes him again, but he stops walking and delves into her eyes promising, "Really, Keely, I'm kidding!"

"Good. Please don't joke like that again. I'm not ready for that kind of humor yet; hopefully never."

Keely composed herself, then remarked out of the blue in true Keely fashion, "The blonde had a nice piece of belly button jewelry, did you notice?"

"The emerald flower; what about it?"

"Well, you know that I like flowers and I thought ..."

"No. No, you don't. Don't even consider it. Haven't I been through enough today?"

"I was just kidding."

They continued to walk silently, taking turns smirking and glancing. Quite unexpectedly, she reached up and removed both of the earrings decorating her lobes, nonchalantly placing them on a weathered wooden gatepost without breaking their stride. He noticed. Ten, twenty, thirty-five steps ...

"Okay! Why'd you do that?"

"You have never liked me wearing earrings."

"I never said --"

"Yes, you did. I just didn't hear you. Sorry."

"When did I ever say --"

"What did you give me our first Christmas?"

"A sapphire pendant."

"My sixteenth birthday?"

"Sixteen silver bracelets."

"Our first anniversary?"

"Which one? Our 100-percent honesty compact? Our first kiss? The first time we officially dated? Our wedding shower? The first time we --"

"Our wet wedding."

Unconsciously choreographed, both of their left thumb tips reached over and rubbed the foundations of their ring fingers. Yes, they agreed after the fact that despite never making anything official in the public record, that was their wedding and they celebrated it as such. The wedding ring simplified the woman's having to deal with potential suitors vying for her attention, but it was just a prop to her. No one but them could feel the invisible, indestructible wedding bands that adorned their fingers. Not made out any futuristic element, containing neither inscriptions nor gems, these abstract garnishments would never be lost or tarnished, always fitting perfectly, and providing a reminder of promises made whose continuance need never be questioned.

"A lavender bathing suit, one-pieced, v-neckline, ..."

"Exactly. Notice a pattern?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Never have you given me earrings. Not a Valentine's Day, not a birthday, Christmas, anniversary, or just putting them under my pillow. You should have told me."

He opened his mouth to defend himself. Thinking better of it, he closed it. "Sorry."

So, I forgave him, "And you should be."

"Still friends?"

"The best. Still marry me?"

"You're right."

"Huh?"

"The blonde was kinda cute. Ow!"

"Wrong answer!"

"OW!"

"Nope, still wrong."

"OW! OW!! OW—I mean, Yes! Unequivocally YES!"

"Better, Montegue."

"Montegue?"

"You still need a new last name, and after that last remark, I think that you deserve 'Montegue.'"

"Hmm ... Phil Montegue ... Mrs. And Mr. Phil Montegue. Mrs. Keely Montegue. Didn't think of that, did ya?"

She kissed his "ring," "Well worth it. Like earrings."

"Exactly like earrings."

"It's not the earrings, is it?"

"Nope."

"It's the putting holes in my skin, isn't it."

"Yes, and it always will be. Selfish of me? It's just simply because I know a masterpiece when I see one. Adding piercings is like poking holes in an oil painting just to add earrings to it."

With that and a kiss, Phil picked Keely up in his arms and carried her back down the sidewalk toward their "little" home. His bride smiled, her face nuzzing his own, "My protector. (sigh) My prince. Back to the castle, Montegue!"

}-{

A/N: One more chapter in the works. I'll be back until the day that Mandy Teslow's cats all start wearing earrings.

09/27/2009


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